Menu
Olympics

ROCOG Admits It Rushed To Finish Athletes' Housing, Stress Tests Expected To End Soon

ROCOG yesterday admitted that in its "rush to finish the housing required for nearly 18,000 athletes and support staff," it delivered units to foreign delegations without first testing basic systems such as plumbing and electrical," according to Will Connors of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. While local organizers have about 600 construction laborers "working round-the-clock to fix the units, some countries, including Italy, have hired their own repairmen." ROCOG Exec Dir of Communications Mario Andrada: "We had to move in a lot of furniture, so we were not totally focused on the stress tests, as we should have been." Andrada said that organizers "are now going building-by-building to do the stress tests that should have been done before athletes started moving in." He "expects the job to be finished" by tomorrow (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/27). In N.Y., Vinod Sreeharsha notes there are "some signs of progress" in the Athletes Village, as members of Australia’s Olympic Committee yesterday said that they "were satisfied with the efforts" to improve conditions, and that their athletes started moving into the village last night. Italy also said that "its situation had improved" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/27). IOC member Anita DeFrantz: "The village had some problems and my understanding is that it's getting fixed every day. It has to. It has to, because there's no place else to go for the games” (“Mike & Mike,” ESPN Radio, 7/27).

PROGRESS BEING MADE: Australia over the weekend threatened to remove its entire team from the Olympic Village, but Australia Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller yesterday said,  "There has been enormous progress made in the past 24 hours. We now have three floors that are complete, and as we were just walking out of the village a whole crew of cleaners were just walking in to complete a further three floors" (L.A. TIMES, 7/27). Canada Chef de Mission Curt Harnett said, "There have been some issues [but] nothing we didn't expect." He added that the Athletes Village issues "are not out of the norm." Harnett:, "You expect them at pretty much every environment when you stress-test things -- sometimes things happen" (CP, 7/27). 

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2016/07/27/Olympics/Oly-Housing.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2016/07/27/Olympics/Oly-Housing.aspx

CLOSE