Was the effort of hosting Games worth the trouble for Brazil?

The initial excitement of knowing Brazil would host both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics turned bittersweet, at best. 

There were mass protests in 2013 against corruption and white elephant stadiums for the football. Then this year Brazil hit a perfect storm of political crisis, historic recession, runaway unemployment and a huge corruption scandal in the flagship national company Petrobras. 

How did Rio de Janeiro and the country as a whole come out in the end? 

“The main legacy of the Games was the party for Rio’s people, who will never forget these days,” said leading Brazilian sports analyst Juca Kfouri. “But the bill to pay will be very high.” 

“Hopefully the Games have also provided a bit of a lesson for Brazilian fans, although I doubt it,” Kfouri added, referring to the loud booing at foreign athletes in everything from tennis to pole vaulting, and even during national anthems and medal ceremonies.

The glorious days of 2009 when the Olympics were awarded to Rio are a distant memory. 

Back then, thousands of Cariocas — as Rio natives are called — celebrated on Copacabana beach, watching the decision live on a huge television screen. 

In 2017, some 63 percent of Rio will be able to use public transport, against only 17 percent in 2009, thanks to the Olympic projects to extend the metro, build a light railway and set up a cross-city dedicated bus lane network.

“Transport is the biggest legacy of the Games in terms of the amount of investment and the amount of people benefiting,” deputy mayor Rafael Picciani told AFP.

Residents aren’t all happy, saying the buses are too few and too full, and that little has been done to address generalized problems in the poorest areas. 

A big letdown has been the failure to improve the massive pollution in the Bay of Guanabara, which was used for sailing contests.