Workers Return to Barra Olympic Park

Olympic Construction Resumes

The return of 2,000 construction workers to the Barra Olympic Park in Rio on Thursday morning marked the end of a two-week long worker's strike. According to an agreement made on Tuesday, their return was one of the conditions for negotiations with the union to continue.

In exchange for the end of the strike, contractors have increased the value of the daily lunch vouchers given to each employee. Future negotiations will involve double pay for overtime and weekend shifts and bonus payments for employees with exemplary attendance records, two benefits the union still seeks to implement.

Rio organizers said no more work stoppages are foreseen, but Antonio Figueiredo Souza, president of the local construction workers union, told Reuters that if the consortium doesn’t advance with talks, the strike will resume.

Bidding Process for Deodoro Complex Launched

Organizers got a second piece of good news when the city government launched two tenders for the construction and renovation of the Deodoro Complex sports venues, the host site of 11 Olympic-type sports and four Paralympic sports during the 2016 Olympic Games.

The city had already completed the bidding for road improvements within and around the complex in March. With the launch of these two tenders, the bidding process of the Deodoro Complex is now complete. The resources for these three tenders will be funded by the Sports Ministry.

The construction and remodeling of the venues are divided into two broad areas bounded by the railway line: Northern Region, with has an investment of 289.2 million dollars; and South, with a budget of 70.2 million dollars. The North Region includes: Slalom Stadium, Mountain Bike track, BMX track, the National Shooting Centre, Rugby Arena and Combined Modern Pentathlon, Deodoro Arena – which will host the Pentathlon Fencing and the preliminaries of the women's basketball matches - the Field Hockey Centre and the Modern Pentathlon swimming pool. The South Region includes the National Equestrian Centre, where the equestrian Cross Country, Dressage and Jumping competitions will be held, and also where there will be built a new veterinary clinic and Village for Keepers.

The construction works of the venues are scheduled to begin in the second semester of 2014 and will be completed in the first semester of 2016. The contracts also foresee 10 months of operation and six months of dismantling temporary structures after the Games. These two new tenders were done by the Municipal Works Secretariat, through RioUrbe, in partnership with the Municipal Olympic Company.

IOC Visit Next Week?

IOC Olympic Games Executive DirectorGilbert Felli is scheduled to visit Rio de Janeiro in the next week; however, as Monday is a national holiday in Brazil and Wednesday is a Rio de Janeiro holiday, the date of his visit is still undetermined.

Written by Andrew Murrell.

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.