Things were very different in Brazil in October 2009, when Rio beat Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago to win the right to host the 2016 Summer Games. "There was absolutely no flaw in the bid," then-IOC president Jacques Rogge said at the time.
Brazil made a convincing, emotional case for its right to hold the Games – the world's premier sporting event had never been held in South America – and its economy showed plenty of promise. The country had emerged from recession and was on its climb back to the 7.5 percent economic growth it recorded in 2010; inflation was below the central bank's target; and the real was strong, which helped Brazil's Índice Bovespa become the world's best performing stock market in 2009, surging a gravity-defying 145 percent in dollar terms.
Flash forward to today and the situation's almost entirely flipped around: Brazil is suffering its worst recession since the 1930s, inflation is high, and its sovereign rating has been downgraded to junk.
The country is also stuck in a political limbo of sorts, with its suspended president, Dilma Rousseff, facing an impeachment trial. Hopes a new administration could turn the country around have helped the real and equities notch up impressive rallies this year, but the outcome remains cloudy.
"The Rio situation right now is tragic. It's very depressing. It's a country that never should have tried to host the Olympics," sports economist and Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist told CNBC's "Street Signs" on Wednesday.
"It doesn't have sufficient transportation infrastructure, it doesn't have sufficient sanitation infrastructure, it doesn't have sufficient sporting infrastructure, it doesn't have sufficient telecommunications infrastructure. So there has been an enormous amount of investment that has been required of the city of Rio."
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