The route of this weekend’s Olympic Games cycling test event in Rio de Janeiro has been altered due to anti-government protests planned for Sunday morning on Copacabana beach, where the race was due to start and finish.
The start of the 165km-long International Road Challenge will remain at Copacabana beach but has been brought forward by an hour to 8.30am local time, while the finish has been switched to São Conrado, 10 kilometres to the west, to avoid clashing with the protests.
"If we finish the event at the site of the demonstrations it would not be convenient," Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes said, according to Bloomberg. "It would not be good for the demonstrations or for the event."
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The protests against President Dilma Rousseff’s government echo those which took place in the build-up to the football World Cup, including during its test event, the 2013 Confederations Cup. Brazil’s hosting of the two biggest sporting events in the world comes amid an ongoing recession, while anti-government sentiment has risen further in recent months due to a corruption scandal.
A spokesman for the Rio 2016 Olympics said that participating countries had rejected the idea of postponing the test event. "It would naturally be a mess and it would disrupt the event," Mario Andrada told Bloomberg. “It’s a double test event for cycling and protests. Let’s see.”
The International Road Challenge will include laps of both the Grumari circuit, which includes the short, sharp climb of Grumari and the Grota Funda, and the Canoas/Vista Chinesa Circuit, which includes a climb of 8.9 kilometres and a technical, 6-kilometre descent. The race is almost 90 kilometres shorter than the Rio 2016 Olympics road race, which will be 256.4 kilometres in length.
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