The Rio Olympics Could Already Be The Worst Ever

It was the opening football match of the Rio Olympics and the crowd was finding voice. Each time Australian women's goal keeper, Lydia Williams launched a kick they would come together and let rip.

"BIIIIIIICHAAAAAA," (a Portuguese gay slur) was their chant.

The chant wasn't directed at the keeper specifically and it's unclear why exactly fans were yelling it. Yet homophobic chanting remains an all-too common occurrence in Brazilian football fixtures as the country struggles to get a handle on the chilling frequency of gay-hate murders and assaults. Nearly 1600 people have died in acts of homophobic violence in Brazil in the last four years - averaging out at nearly a murder a day for a nation of 200 million.

As the opening ceremony for the Rio olympics looms the games are already in damage control. For a country with millions living suffering in slums and poverty, keeping a clean sheet was always ambitious. As the world's athletes and media descend on Rio in this here Age Of Transparency and free flowing information, barely an hour passes without a new scandal.

As the olympic torch made its approach to Rio today riot police were called in to quell protests along the route. They used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd who'd come together to rally against the vast expenditure on the games while 21.4% of the country continues to live in poverty.

Since the games were announced in 2009 the Brazilian government added further insult to its already impoverished civilians by bulldozing numerous favelas in the lead up to both the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. They were levelled to make way for venues and accommodation for athletes, or simply to hide eyesores from international visitors.

Brazil likes to think of itself as a first world country and an emerging economic powerhouse. With 40 000 million of its 200 million people living in poverty - many of whom are the descendants of slaves stolen from Africa and brought here to work - it could be argued they are neither. Rio, as it happens, was once home to one of the biggest slave ports in the world.

Desperation and poverty are the bedfellows of crime and murder, and the olympics has barely survived a day in the lead up without one or the other. Earlier today a Russian national shot dead a Brazilian during an attempted carjacking, the incident taking place on the main thoroughfare between the olympic park and city centre.

It follows the kidnapping of New Zealand jujitsu competitor Jason Lee and his partner at gunpoint by military officers who then forced him to withdraw $800 from an ATM. He then ended up with the police at the door of his apartment despite not having given them his address. They have since fled the country.

It followed on from the gunpoint robbery of Australian paralympian Liesl Tesch in the lead up to the games. While phones, computers and clothes were stolen from the rooms of both Danish and Australian olympic teams by people working in the athletes village, many of whom are freely entering secured areas without accreditation sparking security concerns and fears of a possible terror attack.

Brazilian police, meanwhile, arrested 12 members of a would-be terrorist group aligned with the Islamic State in the lead up to the games. The terror group also posted a message this week in Portuguese calling for attacks on the games. American officials have been training Brazilian anti-terrorism units on the possibility of chemical and biological weapon attacks on Olympic venues.

The vulnerability of the Olympics to a terror attack was highlighted by a number of attempts by protestors to disrupt the torch relay. In one case an activist was able to get close enough to douse the flame with a fire extinguisher, though he failed to put it out.

More likely to affect athletes health at the games, however, is the toxic seawater off the city's coast due to poor sewage and waste disposal infrastructure. Fresh testing of water at the sailing venue has shown no improvement in water quality amidst claims of corruption that funds dedicated to cleaning up the water were misused.

Australia's Chef de Mission, Kitty Chiller has advised competitors in sailing events to: "A - try not to fall out of the boat. B - if they do fall out of the boat, keep their mouth closed."

Even the olympic swimming pool has the Australian team concerned with Australia's assistant coach, Mitch Larkin, pulling swimmers out of the pool on Thursday because he deemed the water quality to be sub par.

More than a dozen high profile athletes have also withdrawn from the games due to fear of the Zika virus. Australian golfer Jason Day was one of them, joining 14 other golfers, a handful of tennis players and American cyclist Tejay Van Garderen as no-shows.

Australian officials have also slammed the accomodation provided for athletes after it failed a "stress test" in which "We decided to do a 'stress test' where taps and toilets were simultaneously turned on in apartments on several floors to see if the system could cope once the athletes are in-house," Kitty Chiller, the AOC's chef de mission, said in a statement published in the Sydney Morning Herald. "The system failed. Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments and there was 'shorting' in the electrical wiring."

Among the many problems listed by the AOC were "blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed and dirty floors in need of a massive clean." Australia's NBA basketball player, Andrew Bogut, also made headlines after he too slammed the athletes accomodation this week. Meanwhile, America's Dream Team basketball side has bunked down on a luxury cruise ship off the coast of Rio.

Several claims of corruption continue to swirl around the games in the lead up regarding the distribution of federal funds for the building of and maintenance of venues. All at the same time the suspended president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff faces and impeachment trial and the country continues through the worst economic recession since the 1930s.