Hey, I’m sorry. When I wrote Thursday night that I was finished trashing the Rio Olympics, I had no idea I’d wake up to another crapstorm aimed at the Brazilian Games on the day of the opening ceremonies. I’m the victim here. Really.
So at the expense of costing myself a date with Team USA Olympic rower Megan Kalmoe, I’ve got to touch on a few final things before I turn over the Rio Olympic garbage gyre to actual sports. That all starts Saturday and, trust me, I’ll be watching every second of it with the rest of you.
Thursday, right after the Olympic torch passed the consulate, a Russian diplomat used his Kung Fu powers to not only disarm a mugger, but turn around and shoot the criminal dead on the spot. In what could have easily been a scene from the new Jason Bourne movie, Marcos Cesa Feres Braga, a native of Brazil who works at the Russian embassy, was the “victim” of an attempted armed mugging by a guy on a motorcycle. I put “victim” in quotes because when the guy shoved the gun inside Braga’s car, the lawyer and martial arts expert (for real), put the Van Damme on him, took away his gun and shot the mugger point blank.
International intrigue over mugger killed in hand-to-hand combat near Olympic Park
https://t.co/EKOhkCmqSx— i newspaper (@theipaper) August 5, 2016
Braga is a trained jiu-jitsu expert and just happened to be in the car with his wife and daughter at the time. This motorcycle robber picked the wrong guy at at exactly the wrong time. The mugger, identified as Leonardo Lopes Batista, died on the spot and the Rio police basically left his body to rot there on the street for hours, even as Olympic cyclists passed by on a training exercise.
While not really affiliated with the Olympics, it’s still a hell of a thing to happen just right outside the Olympic Village.
We’ve been so focused on the dangers presented to athletes by the conditions in Rio, what we’ve neglected to take into consideration is the danger the athletes might represent to the Rio citizenry. A boxer from Morocco changed all that.
Hassan Saada was detained by Rio police this week after being accused of the attempted sexual assault of a couple of Olympic Village maids. Saada has been stripped of his Olympic credentials and will not be able to participate in the games. If convicted of the attempted assault, Saada could face six to 10 years in prison.
Moroccan boxer Hassan Saada has been arrested over allegations of sexual assault in Riohttps://t.co/FxCyCyIIJL pic.twitter.com/eM9kMNe3Y5
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 5, 2016
Saada was set to compete in the light heavyweight division of the Olympic boxing competition.
One thing that might actually help keep the athletes and citizenry safe is that Rio is currently crawling with around 1,000 United States intelligence operatives, or as you laymen might refer to them; spies.
According to NBC news hundreds of CIA analysts, law enforcement officers and special operations soldiers have been deployed to Rio to stop any terrorist or criminal plots that might be aimed at the games. All 17 United States intelligence agencies are sending people, including commando squads from the US Navy and US Marines.
1,000 spies with the NSA in charge. Inside the U.S.' efforts to keep athletes safe in Rio. By @warkin and @rwindrem https://t.co/qqX83G9E55
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) August 5, 2016
While that might seem like a little overkill, just two weeks ago Brazilian authorities arrested 13 people in Rio with alleged ties to ISIS.
The United States isn’t alone in sending spies to scour the Brazilian countryside. At least 50 other countries have their own operatives on the ground in what should turn out to be a pretty bitchin’ spy convention as long as nothing blows up. Maybe those 450,000 condoms in the Olympic Village won’t go to waste after all.
One person who won’t be needing even one of those condoms is Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura. Uchimura is the best male gymnast in the world. He’s won the World Championships six times and won four gold medals at the Olympics. What he’s already lost in Rio is his dignity and self respect as he’s racked up a $5,000 cell phone bill playing Pokemon GO.
Luckily for Uchimura his service provider gave him a break and let him buy a backdated data plan that’s still costing him around $30 a day. God I hope that bulbasaur was worth it.
