The Olympics are contagious

By Chris Longo

At the start of the games, Jacob Corrigan wrote a story about Olympic super-fan David Chin, who said: “This will not be someone’s first and only Olympics. They say you catch a bug. You have no choice but to come back.”

Olympic Stadium, Friday, August 10th (Photo by Chris Longo)

As the finals days of the Olympics winded down, I began to understand what Mr. Chin was saying. I can throw out a few sappy lines about having the time of my life in London, but instead I’ll give some concrete evidence. Everyday, whether it was at the venues, in the tubes or at Waterloo station, I found the red maple leaf. That’s right, the Canadians were one of the most visible fan bases at the games, even more so than American fans. Maybe the Americans are a little more discreet about showing their colors, but for Canada – a country who isn’t well known for their summer Olympic prowess – the turnout was unbelievable. I have to chalk it up to the Olympic fever spilling over from the successful 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. 

When I woke up in New York this morning, I had an Olympic hangover. I wished I could do it all over again. This time in my life, with an incredible group of people, in a city like London, truly once in a lifetime. As London 2012 passes the torch to Rio 2016, it’s tough to look forward because I have no idea where I’ll be at that point. If I get the chance, I’ll be there in Brazil cheering on the Americans, the Canadians, the host nation and all the athletes who sacrifice so much of their lives for one shot at glory.

With London still fresh in my mind, I think back to the Michael Phelps press conference I was lucky enough to get into. After Phelps took his final gold, he answered question after question about retiring, then left the future of U.S. swimming to his younger teammates. When the conference was over, Jake and I walked up to ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, one of my favorite sports personalities, to get his thoughts on the London games thus far.

“After 10 Olympics they all start to mesh together,” said Wilbon.

He asked us if we were enjoying our first Olympic experience, then posed for a picture.

“Your first Olympics will be my last.”

With a half smirk, he passed us the torch and walked off into the sunset. Or at least that’s how I’ll remember it.

Child Soldiers in the Rio’s Drug Wars

By Arushi Sharma

Edited by Gina Edwards

Mario (as he prefers to be identified) was 11 when he killed a person for the first time. It was night, and about 15 boys had gathered at the highest point in their favela, and after spending the evening snorting cocaine, the boys were high and looking for something to do. As Mario pulled the trigger to the .32 caliber revolver he looked at the x9—or snitch— and felt no remorse. He felt nothing because he was too high.

With the upcoming 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics games, Brazilian officials have waged a war to pacify Rio de Janeiro’s drug and gang-related violence. As authorities try to decipher the maze of favelas, or slums, gangs have started using teenagers to do their dirty work since their prison sentences are shorter.
The gang culture

Jens Glüsing is a German foreign correspondent in the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He has first-hand experience of the drug wars being waged in the city and has been interviewing a number of young men apprehended in the conflict.

Glüsing points out that drug gangs control about 300 of the city’s 700 favelas, and murder is now the most common cause of death among Brazilian youth; 40 percent of all murder victims are between 15 and 25 years old.

At the age of 10, Mario began working for drug dealers by selling cocaine in the favelas. When he turned 11, he was promoted to a “rádio,” where he sat on a roof and looked out for possible problems while using a walkie-talkie to update his colleagues; he also snorted cocaine to stay awake.

For teenagers like Mario, part of becoming a “warrior” means abiding by the unwritten law of these gangs. For instance, in his gang, Terceiro Comando (Third Command), you never steal from anyone in the favela or flirt with someone else’s woman. Mario also enjoyed earning 250 Real ($150) a day; while children his age attend school, Mario lives the life of a favela king.

If Mario had not been arrested after someone tipped off the police, he would have eventually become a “gerente,” or manager of a drug selling operation. Today he is 17 and an inmate at the “Escola João Luiz Alves,” a youth correctional facility in Rio. Even today he remains loyal to his gang.

According to BBC News, countless young men—many of them teenagers—have died in Rio’s drug wars over the past six weeks alone. Even in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, minors are dying every day in battles between warring “Maras,” or youth gangs.
View from the outside

Eli Dezi is a student at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) and has seen violence first hand.

“I didn’t grow up in Rio, but now that I study here it’s hard to ignore everything that’s going on,” said Dezi. “I did recently read somewhere that lawmakers are considering increasing sentences for even 16-year-olds.”

According to Glüsing, the mafia takes advantage of the fact that minors cannot be given adult prison sentences. Comando Vermelho (Red Commando), one of Rio’s largest criminal organizations, prefers to use adolescents to commit its crimes because if apprehended, the minors spend only a few months in prison. Also, drug users and possessors in Brazil are not arrested and jailed, but rather cited and offered rehabilitation and community service; this makes it easier for the boys to return to their gangs shortly after being released.

Mario will be freed soon. So what does he plan on doing after he is let go? “I guess I’ll look for a job,” he said. “Otherwise the dealers will always have a job for me.”