2016 Olympics' Effect on Rio
- Ana (Puerto Rico)
- Sep 22, 2016
- 2 min read
The 2016 Olympics have certainly dominated radio broadcasts, news headlines, television programs and the everyday lives of just about everyone in the past two weeks. It seems that all over the world, people have turned their attention to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Olympics have most definitely made countries overcome debt, prejudices and other internal conflicts to unite its citizens in the hopes of bringing home a gold medal for their homeland. In fact, the host of this excitement has been the first to celebrate despite being in an economic slump, having just impeached its president, and trying its former leader for corruption.
It’s hard to imagine that all of those colored feathers, beautiful costumes and upbeat music that reigned in the Olympic Inauguration hide so much political and economic chaos. The former Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff was suspended from her post on May 12th with corruption charges and is now awaiting the final impeachment trial, which is expected to conclude on August 29th. The country’s economy, the world’s ninth largest, contracted by 0.3 percent in the first quarter, marking the fifth straight quarter it shrank. Even more so, last year Brazil’s gross domestic product fell to its lowest level since 2009. Similarly, inflation rose nine percent in 2015 and energy as a percentage of exports fell to 7 percent. Clearly, this country was completely different in 2009, when it was chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games. However, 2014 was a huge turning point for its economy, as its government faced the biggest corruption scandal its country had ever experienced.
Even with so many interior problems, Brazil has demonstrated the unity of its people to the entire world. They have hosted these Olympic Games incredibly well and only at a fraction of the cost of the 2012 London Games. However, the country is still in the middle of an impending storm that will soon have nowhere else to explode but on the country itself.
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