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Brazil selects Rio for 2012 Games bid Posted: Monday July 07, 2003 1:51 PMRIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's candidate city to host the 2012 Olympic games. Rio beat Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city, in a decision Monday by the Brazilian Olympic Committee. Other candidates for the Olympics include Moscow, New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Havana and Leipzig, Germany. No South American city has ever hosted the Olympics. Rio's bid committee said staging the games would require investments of US$1.6 billion, plus US$3.1 billion more for infrastructure in this sprawling city, with a metropolitan area population of 10 million. City officials argued that Rio would have a head start on the 2012 Olympics because it will spend US$300 million to stage the 2007 Pan American Games, lowering the needed investments to US$1.3 billion. Officials from Sao Paulo had argued their city should host the Olympics because Rio was hosting the Pan American Games. Sao Paulo would have had to spend US$1.2 billion to build stadiums, an Olympic Village and other facilities, and US$1.5 billion during the games. Sao Paulo already had plans to spend some US$10 billion on infrastructure improvements. This is Rio's second bid after being passed over for the 2004 Olympics. It was Sao Paulo's first bid ever. Brazilian Olympic Committee officials selected Rio despite outbreaks of violence that have captured the attention of international media. Rio lately has come under siege from drug gangs, which control the city's shantytowns and have begun attacking police posts, shopping malls and tourist hotels. In March, it got so bad the government sent troops and tanks into the streets to keep order during Rio's famous Carnival holiday.
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