French rail company SNCF says 800,000 passengers have been affected by what the country’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal described as “acts of sabotage”.
A series of fires caused the disruptions early on Friday morning, hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
Several high-speed TGV lines have been hit to the west, north and east of the capital and SNCF has warned the disruption could last for days. Eurostar has also warned customers of longer journey times and cancellations.
Normal people do not want to abandon modern life and modern conveniences for the sake of the climate change zealots – nor should they be forced to. And in this case, once again, it will be the poor countries who suffer most for the egotism of the rich countries.
PARIS – For all the steps Paris organizers have taken to put on the greenest Olympics ever, their boldest measure – the one they’ve touted again and again – pertains to the dorms in the Athletes’ Village. The rooms don’t have air-conditioning. Because of other cooling measures, organizers have assured, the athletes won’t need it.
But in a farcical turn, when the Games start next month, an Olympic Village designed to showcase sustainability will be more of an energy hog than organizers had hoped.
That’s because portable air-conditioning units will be everywhere. Wheeled in. Shipped in. Ordered by visiting countries that want their athletes to sleep well and perform at the highest level – even if it means a larger carbon footprint.
Worried about what potentially could be the world’s hottest year on record, wealthier nations have effectively undercut Paris’s marquee sustainability measure, signaling that, yes, they care about environmental aims – but not if it risks the comfort of their athletes. Some of those athletes are accustomed to temperatures cooler than what the dorms might have provided and raised concerns to their national Olympic committees.
“It’s a high-performance environment,” said Strath Gordon, the chief of public affairs for the Olympic committee of Australia, one of the countries opting for the ACs.
[…]
“We don’t have deep pockets,” said Donald Rukare, a lawyer who is president of the Uganda Olympic Committee. Rukare mentioned a sweltering international sports competition in Turkey a few years ago, where athletes stayed in rooms without air-conditioning. Some federations shipped in portable units; Uganda did not. “Because we didn’t have the money,” he said.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Make it six straight for Kim Rhode.
The 37-year-old American won a medal for her sixth consecutive Olympics on Friday, capturing bronze in the skeet shooting event at the Olympic Shooting Center.
It’s a stunning accomplishment from Rhode, who becomes the first female Olympian to medal in six consecutive games, and the first summer Olympian as well. Only Italian luger Armin Zoeggeler has done it on the men’s side.
Michael Phelps has broken a 2,000-year-old Olympic record by surpassing the 12 individual titles won by Leonidas of Rhodes. Who was this athlete whose record has taken two millennia to beat, asks Jon Kelly?
Phelps has a total of 22 Olympic gold medals, but nine of these have come in relays – in terms of individual titles he has only just passed the greatest athlete of the ancient world.
Leonidas of Rhodes competed in four successive Olympiads in 164BC, 160BC, 156BC and 152BC and in each of these he won three different foot races.
Somehow, I don’t think that Rio is going to get the tourism boost they hoped for once the Olympics are done.
With the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics just one day away, ocean water along Rio de Janeiro’s famed beaches remains contaminated with bacteria and viruses.
The situation is so dire, the World Health Organization has warned athletes participating in open water sports to not swallow water, to cover any open wounds during competition and to wash off immediately after exiting the water.
Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News’ chief health and medical editor, visited Guanabara Bay, where the sailing competitions will take place, on Sunday to collect samples and see the state of the bay. He traveled with a local biologist and activist, Mario Moscatelli, who noted that there are multiple pipes dumping what appears to be raw sewage directly into the water.
There was a nasty surprise awaiting passengers in the arrivals hall at Rio De Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport on Monday.
Along with the relatives carrying flowers and taxi drivers waiting with name boards there were lines of off-duty police with banners that had a far more ominous message: “Welcome to Hell”.
“Police and firefighters don’t get paid,” the banners, in English and Portuguese, went on. “Whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe”. Photos of the protest have been widely shared on social media and in the Brazilian press. The image above was posted on the photo sharing site Imgur, where it was viewed more than three million times in less than a day.
With just half of tickets sold and only four months before kickoff, Brazil’s new minister of sports, Richardo Leyser, is looking into ways to boost ticket sales.
He told Brazilian newspaper Folha that the Brazilian government may purchase tickets that will be distributed to public schools. He said public officials must also work to boost worldwide confidence in Rio’s ability to host the games and ensure travelers’ safety.
So the answer to an expensive taxpayer-funded boondoggle is to make the taxpayers pay more for it. I’m sure that will solve the underlying issues
It’s also unclear whether construction of the Olympic facilities will be finished as organizers havefaced steep funding constraints — the budget was slashed by $500 million in January.
