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With five days to go before South America's first Olympic Games open in Rio de Janeiro, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said on Sunday that he was more confident than ever that the Brazilian organizers would deliver a "great" Games.
The IOC chief had a tour of the Athletes Village and several competition venues over the past days, which he said has helped allay his worries.
"I remember when I left Europe a couple of days ago, we had a pretty worrying news about the stage of the Olympic Village, this is why I decided to go straight from the airport upon arrival there to the Olympic Village, but when I came there, speaking with the athletes and with the chef de missions, you could already feel they are in very positive attitude and the great spirit they showed," Bach told a press conference at the Main Press Center.
Rio's metro line 4, which has been talked about for decades but only the staging of the Olympic Games finally allowed the project to get off the ground, opened on Saturday in the presence of a number of distinguished guests including Bach. The city's newest metro line will serve up to 300,000 passengers a day after the Aug. 5-21 Olympics.
"The legacy is already taking shape," said Bach, who is overseeing the first summer Games since he took the reign at the IOC in 2013.
"Rio de Janeiro has enjoyed a great and more equitable growth than many other cities in Brazil in the last years since its selection as the host city of the Olympic Games."
Rio's organizers have received lots of criticism in the lead-up to the Games due to a variety of issues like venue construction delay and budget overrun, but Bach remains publicly upbeat.
"There would be, as always, some last-minute challenges. But after what we have seen there in recent months how our Brazilian friends are able to address such challenges, we are more confident than ever that we will have a great Olympic Games in 5 days," he said.
(APD)
