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“Live your passion,” the motto for the summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, is too vague and anodyne to remind anyone of the host city. But that’s probably for the best. A focus group given the job of devising a slogan that more accurately describes Rio these days might have picked something along the lines of “Sicker! Stinkier! More corrupt!”

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To be sure, fretting about whether a host city will have everything ready in time is a familiar pre-Olympics ritual — especially when the games are to be held somewhere other than northwest Europe, North America, or a few highly developed Asian countries.

Delays are blamed on corruption or the inherent laziness of the host populace or both. Concerns about human rights and the environment are sprinkled on to these stories for altruistic flavouring. Then, the games open and run more or less smoothly. Everyone marvels at how plucky those Greeks or South Africans are for pulling it off. The athletes go home. The media lose interest. Stadiums fall into weed-covered disrepair. And the pattern repeats itself four years later.

But the problems afflicting Rio are sufficiently severe and unique that some question whether the games should even go ahead as planned.