The world's media has a penchant for dramatising the problems leading up to an Olympic Summer or Winter Games and South America's Rio is no different.
But there seems to be more intensified issues being investigated by the media regarding Rio and one does not have to be an Einstein to recognise such a check list.
On this list we might see:
Sporting facilities
Olympic personnel accommodation
Hotel and tourist accommodation
Customs ease of access
Security
Crime and Gangs
Internal transport
Policies associated with locals
- housing issues, groceries, corruption
And now adding to this list is a major Health warning.
Pregnant women
A recent concern has been raised cautioning pregnant women from travelling to Rio for the Olympics. A host of babies are being born with abnormally small heads.
Researchers have linked the rise in Microcephaly, a neurological disorder in which infants are born with smaller craniums and brains, to the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease first seen in Africa in 1947.
The outbreak has spread with such speed that the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now warned pregnant women not to travel to Brazil and 13 other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean - potentially affecting thousands intending to arrive in Rio for the Olympics this August.
So far, Brazil has recorded 3,893 cases of microcephaly, with cases in every single state of the South American country. The condition leads to irreversible neurological damage that affects movement and vision. It is thought the Zika virus - which was at first thought to be relatively innocuous - may have arrived in Brazil during the 2014 World Cup carried by visitors from French Polynesia, where an outbreak had just occurred.
The article cites Ricardo Lourenso, who studies tropical infectious diseases at Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Institute: 'The virus found the perfect conditions in Brazil: a very efficient vector that loves human blood, millions of susceptible victims with no antibodies, ideal climate, and lots of places to breed'.
Now the Australian Olympic Committee have issued a formal warning that female athlete, those pregnant and similarly spectators should be extremely cautious and if in any doubt should not travel to Brazil.
The other dramas
Perhaps the largest local drama has been the disenfranchisement of so many people in suburbs where Olympic event and housing is being held. Like is many such Olympic cities new development implies pulling down residential housing.
But it's not middle class residential housing, it's not the leafy suburbs residential housing, it's the struggle street, gang crime, high rise and all that nastiness that has been yanked out of the 'sight zones'.
'Sight zones' are those areas where tourists and the Olympic family see, you it would not be 'cricket' to have such suburbs with all their issues in a 'sight zones' – the answer – remove them.
Although there is a great deal of truth associated with such areas such as crime, drugs Lords, gangs and the rest of it, they nonetheless house hundreds of thousands of ordinary working people and their families. Every Olympic host city develops such policies: good or bad, depending on the commentator.
Security will likewise be a huge issue. That subject will be another day, suffice to say that an Olympic event has a little to do with sports, the real game is played out in all the other considerations as listed above.
Politicians will come from all over the world as they do for any Olympics and this one in Rio is mega simply because it will be the first Olympic Games hosted by a South American country.
Christian ministry
Once again, as with every Olympics, a host of Olympic ministry will be on the agenda in Rio. This will range from formal ministry within the Olympic athlete village to churches and para-ministry agencies in full swing in every quarter of each Olympic venue.
Please pray for each of these to be as effective as each Olympic event has been in the past.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html