Excerpt from Los Angeles Times
By Vincent Bevin
The Summer Olympic Games are days away and Guanabara Bay is bustling. The British sailors make final preparations to their boats. Nearby, the Dutch crew members prepare inflatable rafts.
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And out on the water, the plastic bags and trash float by. To the north, near Rio's poorer communities, the stench from the bay is overwhelming, even from a distance.
“So this is a beautiful stretch of coast, isn't it?” asks Carmen Priscila Alves, 48, as she walks along Gloria Marina, where the Olympic sailing events will begin. “But you'd have to be blind not to see the dark side. It's devastating what has happened to this water, and authorities clearly didn't deliver what they promised.”