Rio de Janeiro – Olympics chief Carlos Nuzman on Thursday soothed fears about the city's preparations for the 2016 Games after criticism of Brazil's readiness for the 2014 World Cup.
Nuzman, who has been called 'the father of Rio 2016', said the city has been laying the groundwork for the Summer Olympics for almost a decade, since launching its successful bid to host the 2007 Pan American Games.
“We are on board since 2002, when we had the Pan American Games,” said Nuzman. “There's some major positions that we started 10 years ago.
“Immediately after the Pan American Games – which were a success, they were the best Pan American Games ever – we immediately had the (Olympic) bid.
“We have the same team. It helped us a lot,” he told journalists on the sidelines of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in the South African city of Durban.
Speaking two weeks after Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke gave a scathing assessment of Brazil's preparations for the 2014 World Cup, Nuzman said he did not fear the negative publicity would spill over to the Olympics.
He said the Games would in fact benefit from new infrastructure being built for the World Cup.
“The bus rapid transit will be ready before the World Cup, airports, and we have some infrastructure that the government is responsible for – this will help us for our organisation,” Nuzman said.
“We are side-by-side, because the government is the same.”
And he stood up for his colleagues on the World Cup organising committee, saying preparations for the football showcase were well under way even though they were not always visible.
“We'll have a fantastic World Cup,” he said.
Nuzman, a former volleyball player, led Rio's Olympic bid and is now president of the city's 2016 organising committee.
He brought home the hosting rights after leading an unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Games, and had some advice on Thursday for the losers in Wednesday's vote for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which saw Pyeongchang (South Korea) win convincingly over Munich (Germany) and Annecy (France).
“Since the first day when you lose, the next day you need to sit and start to work,” he said. – Sapa-AFP