Rio has a blast to mark 1000-day countdown

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RIO DE JANEIRO: Rio marked 1000 days to the 2016 Olympics by starting the impending countdown with a blast, dynamiting the entrance to a tunnel to the new Transolimpica expressway which will link the city centre with future Games sites.  Organising Committee president Carlos Arthur Nuzman and Rio governor Sergio Cabral were on hand to push the button to detonate the blast as the host city took a spectacular step towards launching the 23km-long expressway which will help to link four competition zones.

Organisers say the first ever Games to be held in South America are all about providing the city with a lasting infrastructural as well as sporting legacy and Nuzman warmed to the theme, telling reporters: “This construction is of historic and fundamental importance in providing a legacy for the people.”

Brazil has in recent months been racked by protests with many residents of the giant nation of some 200 million complaining that the combined estimated $30bn cost of staging next year’s World Cup in 12 cities and the Olympics thereafter is too great to bear and the money would be better spent on social projects.

There are also fears that the country will struggle to revamp sagging infrastructure on time.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) coordination teams have made five visits to Rio already, and recognised steady progress. — AFP