Rio 2016 Organizing Committee To Foot R$8M Olympic Dock Bill

The Rio 2016 organizing committee "will have to provide" the docks to prepare the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon for the Olympics "and even pay for it," according to Vinicius Konchinski of UOL. The Rio de Janeiro government "tried, but did not obtain the equipment." Not a single business presented a proposal for the "acquisition of necessary docks" for Olympic rowing and canoeing. Rio de Janeiro State Secretary of Staff Leonardo Espíndola said, "It didn't work. Rio 2016 knows these flotation devices better and they'll buy it. Everything will be ready for the Olympic test event [in August]." The Rio state government "promised" in March to invest R$14M to "prepare the Lagoon and its rowing stadium to Olympic standards." However, R$7.6M of that amount "would have been spent on docks" (UOL, 4/29)