BRAZIL: OLYMPICS - Rio de Janeiro, a city of extremes hopes to become South America's first Olympic hosts

Record ID: 329709

  • Title: BRAZIL: OLYMPICS - Rio de Janeiro, a city of extremes hopes to become South America's first Olympic hosts
  • Date: 2nd October 2009
  • Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (FILE) (BRAZILIAN OLYMPICS COMMITTEE HANDOUT) VARIOUS OF PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OF RIO DE JANEIRO'S BID
  • Embargoed: 17th October 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVABFYY8TJXTT2FN6CGLJR1DRG4E
  • Story Text: Rio de Janeiro seems like the perfect backdrop for the Olympic Games with its beautiful beaches, lush mountains and tropical weather.
    But the sound of crashing waves is frequently disrupted by the piercing noise of gunshots fired in the crime-ridden slums that surround the tourist city.
    More so than any of its competitors to host the 2016 Olympics, Rio is a city of extremes with a daily capacity to both delight and disturb.
    The "Marvellous City", as its residents never tire of calling it, was blessed with mountains, forest and beaches that can take even a seasoned traveller's breath away.
    The six million Cariocas, as Rio residents are known, have an easy-going warmth and passion that explodes in their fierce football rivalries and in the city's Carnival - a weeks-long festival that unites rich and poor in a blur of Samba and Bacchanalia.
    Increasingly overshadowed as an economic and cultural hub by giant Sao Paulo in recent years, Rio is showing signs of a revival.
    Its finances are in the black for the first time in years thanks to a competent state government, and the discovery of one of the world's biggest oil reserves off its coast promises a steady flow of investments and jobs in the coming ears.
    Yet Brazil's former capital remains sharply divided between the world of around 1,000 slums spread throughout the city and that of the "asphalt" - the slum dwellers' term for the paved roads of middle-class areas.
    Copacabana beach, Sugarloaf mountain and the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue are all squeezed into the wealthy, narrow strip of Rio's South Zone. Beyond that, much of the Rio that tourists rarely see is a sprawling jumble of lower middle-class areas and slums with little or no state presence.
    And if all else fails, there are always the beaches - the playgrounds where Cariocas unfailingly flock at the first glimpse of sun. There are few better ways to pass a day than lazing on Ipanema's sands, perhaps followed by a cool choppe (draft beer) and a game of pick-up football.
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