Pre-Olympic Games

Rio de Janeiro

The 27 October edition O Globo, Rio’s largest daily newspaper, featured an editorial cartoon on the front page instead being buried further back in the op-ed section. This is a bit unusual, even though it was placed below the fold, but its up-front placement underscores the concern of most of the population and numerous city officials. The message is that before the ground has even been broken for the first venue for the games several very public and violent incidents of crime that have occurred–just in the three short weeks since it was announced that the city was awarded the winning bid for the 2016 Olympic games–are now giving Rio a bad image.