The Olympics are One Month Away, Here's What's Still a Mess

The Olympics begin in Rio on August 5 and let's just say, it's going to be an interesting month. Zika, pollution, financial instability, construction delays and more have all conspired to create a sense of unease and uncertainty as the city gets down to the final push to the games. There's still a lot to address before they start, and some of the issues, like polluted water, don't have a particular "fix," so they will just be a part of the Olympics.

Zika is the big wild card, with many athletes opting to skip these Olympics because of it. Whether they have legitimate concerns, or have just found a convenient excuse, the fear of infection is hanging over the Games and there's nothing to really do except roll the dice, or skip out.

Similarly, water pollution at the venues for rowing, sailing, and other water sports is a huge concern for many athletes. In Rio's 2009 bid for the Olympics, organizers included a seven-year plan to clean up the polluted and contaminated waters in places like Guanabara Bay, where raw sewage, trash, and dead fish flow. That plan has failed spectacularly—authorities are investigating whether federal funding was illegally diverted from the project—and a recent report found that Rio's waters contained "viruses up to 1.7 million more times hazardous than a beach in the U.S."

Last week, the mutilated remains of a human body washed up on the shores of Copacabana beach, the Olympic volleyball venue, and that's not the first time human remains were seen in the water.

The Olympic Velodrome, used for cycling events, has had a tumultuous path to existence, but it appears to finally be (mostly) completed. Construction was delayed on May 30th, when the initial contractor went bankrupt. The job was given to another company and while the arena is almost ready to go, it is also still only almost ready to go.

However, the venue is still a work in progress. Temporary seating still must go in, along with concessions and other behind-the-scenes facilities. Window cleaners were still working Sunday at one end of the track, and painting remains to be done.

"We see that the building is still under construction, so there is a bit of dust on the track," said Swiss rider Gael Suter, who practiced Sunday and has already qualified for his first Olympics. "Maybe it is not 100 percent yet. But no doubt it will be ready for the Olympics, and it will be a fast track."

Everyone seems confident that it will get done, but this is still an incredibly close shave for a major venue.

On April 21, the Tim Maia bike path, an Olympic "legacy project" spanning cliffs high above the water and parallel to a stretch of road intended for Olympic road-cycling events, collapsed, killing two cyclists. There had been complaints that the newly constructed path had already begun to deteriorate—shoddy construction is a running theme—and when a large wave crashed up the cliffs it lifted a 150-foot segment of the path, sending it and the people on it crashing back down to the cliffs and water below. The entire path is now closed and the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, said it will re-open this year, possibly in time for the games. In a grim bit of foreshadowing, this all happened hours after the Olympic torch was lit in Greece.

A wide-ranging investigation into corruption surrounding the construction of many Olympic venues revealed much of these issues are related to corruption and graft. Coupled with Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, and it's a recipe for disaster. The governor of Rio de Janeiro recently declared a "state of calamity," announcing that Rio was bankrupt and unable to meet financial obligations ahead of the games. It is expected that the federal government will find a way to keep Rio afloat for the Olympics, but it's less clear what happens after that.