RIO DE JANEIRO — Now that the Rio Olympics are finally ending, you can imagine how the organizers of these Games might celebrate.
On the soft, wide sands of Copacabana Beach, looking out at the Atlantic. In one hand, a newspaper declaring Brazil the Olympic champion in men’s soccer and volleyball, a perfect ending. In the other, a pen. It’s to write I-told-you-so letters to naysayers who said these Games would be a disaster.
The concerns about these Games were myriad, and many of them stemmed from the water. One fear was that the polluted water in the ocean, the Lagoa lagoon and Guanabara Bay would sicken the athletes competing in it and on it.