What Does Billions in Security Measures Get You in Rio? Not Much

VICE Sports staff writer Aaron Gordon is in Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics and filing daily dispatches.

By pure happenstance, the apartment I'm renting is right next door to the IOC hotel, where all of its members and their $450- to $900-per-day per diem are staying. Newly installed street signs direct buses and cars to the "Olympic Family hotel," which is cordoned off from the general public. Federal police stand guard and security tents with metal detectors and bag scanners prevent anyone who shouldn't be getting insidefrom getting inside, at least in theory.

Between street crime in the city, political unrest in Brazil, and larger threats of international terrorism, security has been a major concern in the run-up to the Olympics. Already, athletes arriving for the Games and in the Olympic village have been robbed. And last month, Brazil arrested a dozen people who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS and were discussing an attack. Brazil's security chief has promised there will be some 85,000 security, police, and military personnel on the ground during the Games, but just last week the Ministry of Justice dismissed the firm that was supposed to handle the screening process for venues. In their place, the government is calling up retired police officers in what the Wall Street Journal called an "eleventh-hour push on Olympic security."

Which is maybe how I got into Olympic Park yesterday without ever being subjected to actual security.

It began in the morning, when I tried to find the media shuttle to the Main Press Center in the Olympic Park. Because there are no Olympic volunteers standing outside my Airbnb, I went next door to the IOC hotel and asked them where the media shuttle stops, as I had taken it home the previous day. The extremely nice, extremely flummoxed volunteer looked at my credential and told me, essentially, that I cannot use the IOC shuttle—which I knew; I wanted the media shuttle—but she would let me on it just this once. It would be our secret, she said. I wasn't about to correct her because the next IOC shuttle came in 20 minutes, whereas the media shuttle ran every hour.

While I waited, several people asked me if I was in line for "T3," which appeared to be IOC jargon for "a private car." Any IOC official can summon, at any time, a four-door Nissan—official sponsor of the Olympic Games—which will zoom them around the city with full access to the Olympic Lanes.

When my shuttle arrived, the volunteer waved me on before telling me this was the "last time" I could use it. One other person, a woman wearing all Team Great Britain apparel, got on the shuttle with me before we left. She chose to sit right next to me rather than in any one of the other empty seats.

Olympic Park, home to the majority of the events, is about the size of a Six Flags, but with less aesthetic appeal. Because all this has been hastily constructed in the past few months, nobody seemed to know the lay of the land yet, including our shuttle driver. He executed four three-point turns on the park's main thoroughfare before getting to the entrance we needed. He was then directed into a security tent, manned by three army troops. The driver got out and talked to the troops. The woman next to me looked like she might combust due to confusion.

After a few minutes, another shuttle arrived and the driver got out as the troops inspected the front of the car. The passengers got out, too, and walked away. So I did the same.

"Can we go?" the woman in my car from Great Britain asked me. She seemed to be one of those people who takes and enjoys vacations comprised largely of riding around in coach buses.

"I guess," I guessed.

"Where do I go from here?" She asked me, cementing my assessment of her vacation preferences.

"Where are you looking to go?"

"I'm not sure."

I immediately pitied every Olympics volunteer, realizing they probably have to deal with exchanges like this dozens of times a day. I walked away without saying anything else.

A soldier directed me to go a certain way and I did, because the man with the gun told me so. This led me into a security tent like the one outside the IOC hotel. The man behind the scanner wasn't looking at the screen, or even in a position to see it, and seemed most focused on pressing the button to move the conveyor belt. I walked through the metal detector—which may not have been on; my phone was in my pocket and the detector made no sound—and gathered my backpack, which had never been inspected in the slightest.

I then strolled into Olympic Park, the media press center, and press conferences with IOC president Thomas Bach and the USA men's basketball team, without ever having been subjected to a cursory security screening.

I'm not the only one to have experienced this lax approach.

Um, if you're a gringo you can just walk into — Will Carless (@willcarless)August 3, 2016

In its report on Rio's security Thursday, the Wall Street Journal spoke with active and retired police officers who said that there had been little training for personnel called up at the last minute to supply weapons screening at venues for the Games. One officer told the paper that he was still learning how to use such crucial equipment as the X-ray machine—on Thursday.

The Brazilian government has spent billions on securing these Olympics, including a 2.9 billion-real emergency loan (about $895 million) for Rio's security fund in June. That money bought the helicopter hovering above Olympic Park and the military boat cruising along the bay adjacent; it paid for the dozens of federal and local police who cordoned off the road outside my apartment this morning acting as a motorcade for some road cyclists out for a ride. Maybe the credential around my neck was enough for them. But billions of reals in security doesn't buy a whole lot of safety if nobody bothers to look inside your bag.

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