Rio 2016: All This and Zika, Too

English: A female mosquito of the Culicidae family (Culiseta longiareolata). Size: about 10mm length Location: Lisbon region, Portugal Türkçe: Culiseta longiareolata türü dişi bir sivrisinek. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you think of Brazil, you usually think of the Amazon jungle, rain forests, iconic religious statues, Carnivale, and sandy beaches populated by sunbathers wearing little to nothing at all.

When Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympic summer games, this is what you're getting instead:  Political corruption.  Labor unrest.  Security threats.  Waterways filled with raw sewage.  Unfinished stadiums and accommodations for athletes.  And with Brazil being south of the equator, it's winter down there.

Then there's the Zika virus, which has been spreading north from South America by way of infected mosquitoes.  It can cause illness, especially for men and women in their childbearing years who run the risk of giving birth to a baby with a smaller-than-normal head.  It has also affected the travel plans of spectators and athletes alike.

There had been calls from health-related organizations to get the International Olympic Committee to either cancel, postpone or move the Games because of Zika.  But the only reason the Olympics have ever been canceled is because of two world wars, so disease seems to be low on the IOC's list of concerns.

Because of Zika and other reasons, some athletes have decided not to make the trip to Rio.  Most of them are male professional athletes using the disease as an excuse to recover from the long season, and for the belief that winning a gold medal is less important than winning Wimbledon or The Masters.  Golf (which is returning to the Olympics after a century's absence), tennis and basketball have been the hardest-hit sports.  But the respective women's teams are already in Rio and will be filled with quality athletes.  Apparently, they're willing to risk getting bit by a mosquito in exchange for the worldwide media exposure only the Olympics can bring.

There are others who won't be competing because they were caught using performance enhancing drugs, making the sports they participate in not worth the materials used to make the medals they won.  There was talk of banning the entire Russian Olympic team on suspicions of state-sponsored doping.  But the IOC lost a stare down contest with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in their recommending that punishment should be subcontracted to various sports organizations.  So far, only the track and field and weightlifting teams have been told to stay home.

So it begins, two and a half weeks of poop and pageantry spoon fed to Americans by NBC and its affiliated cable stations for nearly seven-thousand (plausibly) live hours of coverage.  Rio might not be ready, but everyone else seems to be.  Pass the mosquito repellent, please.