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Brazil's people want the Olympics - COB
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-08-01 09:35
Following the end of the Pan American Games, the President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), Carlos Arthur Nuzman, did not confirm Rio de Janeiro's candidacy to host the 2016 Olympics, but reinforced that it can count on the people's support.
"The people want the Olympics," he said in a press conference on Monday.
Nuzman stressed that the deadline for the presentation of the city's candidacy is September 13, and that COB still has "some cards" to use up to that date.
According to him, the words of the President of the Pan American Sports Organization (Odepa), Mario Vasquez Rana, at the Games' gala ending served to motivate the Committee. On Sunday, at the closing ceremony, Rana said that Rio had celebrated the best Pan Am Games in history.
However, Nuzman admitted that not everything went perfect.
"For 2016, we will need to adjust some of the facilities, but we already have studies on course," revealed COB's President.
Nuzman denied that the event's weakest point was the sales of tickets, as the local press had released several stories of fans that complained about the service. He explained that, out of over a million sold tickets, only 3,385 had been cashed back up to July 24, which represented 0.3 percent, "or almost zero" percent.
He also said to be satisfied with Games' security and transportation systems, matters initially regarded as the biggest problems to be solved, and that turned out to work out well.
In a statement issued earlier on Monday, the official pointed out those items - transportation and security - were some of the " paradigms" that the event helped break, along with the suspicion over the efficacy of the volunteers' workforce and of the partnerships held by the federal, state and municipal governments.
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