Olympic Games: Crime, Pollution, and Sex

ROBBERY: Spain’s Olympic gold-medal winning sailor Fernando Echavarri said he was fortunate to have escaped with his life after being robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro as he and two fellow Spaniards walked to breakfast.

“We were a bit naive, a bit too daring and we are lucky to have survived,” said Echavarri while at Rio’s Olympic sailing venue to train for the Nacra 17 event. “We were too confident, and being confident in Rio is not a good thing.”

Echavarri and two other members of the Spanish sailing team were robbed Friday morning (May 20) when five young men – “not more than 16 years old,” Echavarri said – poked pistol barrels into the Spaniards’ ribs and chests. Full report.

POLLUTION: “We want an absolutely fair playing field; getting the rubbish out of the water,” said Andy Hunt, the CEO of World Sailing. “We don’t want to have any stories of sailors with plastic bags, or whatever it might be that in anyway impacts performance.”

There has been one big improvement so far: the new Marina da Gloria. The new marina building is sparkling, and the water is clearer just months after a new sewage system was installed to stop brown, untreated sludge from being poured into the small harbor. World Sailing is also attacking the problems it can see: spotting and collecting floating rubbish during the Olympic sailing events. Full report

SAFE SEX: About 450,000 condoms will be distributed during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, three times more than for the London Games four years ago, the International Olympic Committee says. Part of the reason was because 100,000 female condoms will be available for the first time, along with 350,000 condoms for men. About 175,000 packets of lubricant are also being supplied. The IOC says the condoms would encourage 10,500 athletes and staff to practice safe sex. Full report.