Clashes at Olympic Torch relay

Eight days before the opening ceremony,organisers are scrambling to put the final pieces. But even as athletes including Jamaican sprinting star Usain Bolt arrived, new woes kept piling up. The latest concern was a threat by metro employees to strike from August 4, the eve of the Olympics, if they don’t get a 9.83 per cent salary raise. 

The metro will be vital in moving the 500,000 tourists expected to attend the Summer Games. There was more bad news on Thursday when an angry crowd blocked the Olympic Torch parade through Angra dos Reis, a coastal resort south of Rio. Crowds protesting lack of public transport and nearly bankrupt Rio state’s late payment of salaries attacked the procession and were driven off by police using tear gas and rubber bullets. A much-depleted Russian team has left for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, missing dozens of athletes who have been excluded amid the country’s doping scandal.