Rio de Janeiro. Mike Egerton/PA Wire/PA Images. All rights reserved.
In November 2009, The Economist had Brazil on its cover (here); the Christ Redeemer represented a rocket and in big letters the journal stated: “Brazil takes off”. The Olympics, it was clear, would present the city with a prime opportunity to show itself off.
Right after Rio was announced as the host-city of the Olympic Games 2016, former president Lula gives an interview in which he repeats many different ways the same idea (here): “it is time to celebrate because Brazil has left the level of a second class country and became a first class country”; “the world has finally recognized: it is the time and the turn of Brazil”; “Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has proved to the world that we conquered full citizenship. No one has doubts anymore about Brazilian economic greatness, social greatness”. Therefore, the Rio Olympic Games was part of not only municipal but national rebranding, confirming the arrival of new Brazil. Such rebranding is not exceptional to Rio, and every host city blends its local colours (see here for the Beijing case). In Rio, the blend was a drive to promote highly concentrated and unequal urban transformation.
