The Olympics are in the final stages of preparation and Rio de Janeiro is almost ready - as long as athletes cover up in anti-mosquito repellent and ignore the polluted water.
Nicknamed “The Marvellous City”, Rio is sure to put on a spectacular show.
After the opening ceremony on August 5 in the legendary Maracana stadium, 10,500 athletes will compete against what will be one of the most photogenic Olympic backdrops ever.
In a world beset by war, terrorism and environmental calamity, the Olympics will give everyone a chance to feel good again.
The Olympics “will be an unforgettable fiesta”, the spokesman for the Rio 2016 organising committee, Mario Andrada, has promised.
But fears of the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus and fallout from Brazil’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s are casting a long shadow.
Incidents of Zika, which has been blamed for causing abnormally small heads in babies born to women infected while pregnant, have exploded across Latin America.
This week, Brazil followed the US and other countries in warning pregnant women to keep away. The Australian Olympic Committee told pregnant athletes to think “very carefully” before competing.
Brazil is desperately trying to eradicate mosquito breeding sites, and Andrada pointed out that August is the Brazilian winter, when mosquito numbers fall sharply.
But with no vaccine likely for years, total safety cannot be guaranteed.
Athletes and tourists should wear “appropriate clothing”, “close windows” and “use repellent”, Andrada advises.
Avoiding bacteria-filled water will be even harder for sailors and windsurfers at the Games.
Back in 2009, when Rio won the Olympic bid, Brazil was an emerging markets star.
Today, a collapse in commodity prices is fuelling Brazil’s deepest recession since the 1930s, while a corruption scandal has sucked in top politicians and executives, and President Dilma Rousseff is fighting impeachment.
Organisers are rebranding the Olympics an austerity Games.
The budget of about 39bn reais ($9.8bn) is in a different league to Beijing’s 2008 $40bn splurge. And unlike London 2012, where the budget ended up more than triple the original estimate, Rio is trying to tighten its belt.
Seating has been reduced at some venues, including the slashing of a planned grandstand at the rowing and canoeing venue. Even volunteers are being cut from 70,000 to 50,000 in order to save on uniforms and training.
One area where no money will be spared is security, with about 85,000 police and soldiers deploying in Rio - double the number used in London.
Brazil has never suffered a militant attack but in the wake of bloodshed in Paris last year, Western countries in particular are worried that the Olympics will be targeted.
The giant country’s ultimate test of success, however, will be ticket sales.
The organising committee says that only about half of tickets allotted to Brazilians have sold. Brazilians are famously last-minute shoppers and those numbers could change suddenly.
The Paralympics, which start immediately after the Olympics, are even more worrying: just 330,000 of some 3mn tickets have sold.
