Rio Olympics 2016 budget dwarfed by London 2012, Sochi 2014

Monday, May 26, 2014

Rio Olympics 2016 budget dwarfed by London 2012, Sochi 2014

Rio Olympics 2016 today revealed a budget of 7 billion Brazilian real (£1.8 billion/$2.9 billion/€2.1 billion) for its hosting of the Summer Olympics and Paralympics.

The updated figure represents a 27 per cent increase above the original cost estimation of 5.5 billion real (£1.4 billion/$2.3 billion/€1.7 billion) for the sporting showpiece, but this is owing to introduction of four new sports - rugby sevens, golf, Paracanoe, and Paratriathlon - to the Games programme and inflation, according to the Organising Committee.

Despite this, the budget - which Rio says will be drawn from private sources, in the form of sponsorship, tickets sales, licensing and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) contribution - is still dwarfed by those for London 2012 and Sochi 2014 at £8.77 billion ($14.6 billion/€10.6 billion) and 1,661 billion roubles (£31 billion/$51 billion/€37 billion) respectively.

"[Rio 2016] has undertaken a line-by-line critical analysis of the budget, to balance known spending commitments and be able to meet new obligations as they arise," he added.

"We are striving to achieve a zero contribution of public funds to the [Organising] Committee."

IOC President Thomas Bach yesterday praised Rio's efforts as it gears up to host the Games, however the country's preparations have not been without their scandals, including widespread criticism over alleged delays in the construction schedule and public demonstrations protesting against the money spent on hosting both the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, which takes place this year.

Rio 2016 President Carlos Nuzman insisted the budget sits in line with the "responsible" hosting the Games.

The Rio 2016 Olympics and Paralympics are scheduled to take place on August 5 until 21 and September 7 until 18 respectively.

They are expected to welcome 16,000 athletes and delegations from 204 countries, 4,500 technical officials, 70,000 volunteers and more than 25,000 media professionals.

DID YOU KNOW ?

$US51+ billion is the amount spent – on staging the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The team at LAMUDI PHILIPPINES has done the maths: for the cost of the most expensive Olympics ever, you could buy 58km2 of land in Saudi Arabia. Or for the price of the Olympic Village alone, you could build more than 300,000 average-size apartments in Pakistan.

In 2012 London Olympics, 25,000 flowers have been planted in the Olympic Village 4,000 properties will benefit from a reduced risk of flooding as a part of the park designs. 3360 workers who built Olympic Park were obese. 200 buildings on the site were demolished. The cost of the Olympic stadium could feed two million children in Africa for a year. With the money used for the handball arena, we could have bought 1.6 million disaster hygiene kits.

source