RIO DE JANEIRO _ Seven years ago, just days before the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio, someone scribbled a message on a white board in the U.S. Olympic Committee's on-site media office.
Welcome to the Congo!
A photographer from O Globo, Rio's largest newspaper, snapped a picture and it was published alongside a giant map of the world, with bright red arrows indicating that Congo is in Africa and Brazil is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, with the headline in English and Portuguese: "Watch and learn."
Soon Rio's mayor was chiming in: "It's really unbelievable ... right at a time when the image of the United States and its government, for reasons we are all aware of, is highly unpopular, and the United States is trying to improve its image through sports. The U.S. wants to show it is not an imperial country."
"Storm de caca," one former USOC official called it.
The Brazilians demanded a pound of flesh and got 175. The USOC promptly put a media officer on the red-eye home (although, I'm told years later, he was made the scapegoat and hadn't actually written it) while issuing a formal, effusive apology "to the people of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro for the regrettable actions" that was translated into Portuguese by the American Embassy.
Two years later, Rio was selected to host the 2016 Summer Games over, among other bids, Chicago.
The sign didn't cost the United States the Olympics, but it was a sign that things needed to change. And they have.
Rio got its Olympics, and they've had, uh, a few problems. Another bullet was found at the equestrian venue Wednesday; the first one ripped through a crowded media center, police reasoned, from a drug gang's errant attempt to shoot down a police blimp in a nearby favela. The night before, a media bus had a couple windows blown out by what local authorities passed off as rocks _ those kids _ but what one passenger, a former Air Force captain turned journalist, insists was from gunshots, knowing a thing or two about weaponry.
It's raining here, and something happens to the sewage system when it empties into underground culverts that leaves the entire place smelling like a gas station bathroom. (Trust me, it's bad.)
German sailors talked about dodging a dead dog during pre-Games practice on notoriously polluted Guanabara Bay and then thinking they saw a dead baby, only to discover, much to their relief, it was a doll floating in the muck.
The Australians initially refused to move into the Athletes Village, calling it "uninhabitable" due to overflowing toilets and exposed wiring, then finally did and were chased out when smoke filled hallways and the fire alarms didn't sound. They returned to their rooms to find belongings stolen.
The diving pool is green.
You just won't hear U.S. athletes talking about it. At all. Ever. What green pool?
We know the fire alarms indeed work in the village, because gymnast Simone Biles tweeted that they had to evacuate Wednesday: "When a fire alarm goes off in your building, grab your medal and gym bag."
Then she added the hashtag: "Everythingisokay."
Guanabara Bay? One sailor after another dutifully spews the company line about how they've been training there for years and never been sick, how USA Sailing has taken the necessary preparations and would never jeopardize their health, how it's really not that bad. Or just a polite no comment. No sordid stories of floating couches or flesh-eating bacteria (that hospitalized a German sailor last year).
You think everything has been hunky-dory at the village for the Games' largest athletic delegation? You're just not going to hear about it.
Nothing to see here. Keep moving along.
It is a triumph of public relations, and brains.
Two things are at stake here. One is the 2024 Summer Games, which Los Angeles has bid for and which the USOC desperately wants (needs) to win. The USOC, unlike nearly every other Olympic committee in the world, is not funded directly by the government and instead relies almost exclusively on sponsorship revenue. And an Olympics on home soil historically means a spike in marketing opportunities, something that hasn't happened since 2002 _ the longest absence in a half-century.
The other is medals.
One phrase you hear a lot from U.S. athletes here is "eliminating distractions," and Rio has plenty to offer. Crime. Pollution. Traffic. Recession. Zika. Late buses. Fire alarms. Green pools.
Distraction easily morphs into excuse, and the idea is to keep athletes focused on their target better than the drug lord on the police blimp. That in turn translates to more medals.
Starting at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the USOC launched the USA Ambassador Program, which is part media training, part sports psychology. Every athlete must attend, usually with his or her team, often at uniform processing in the States before jetting off to a Winter or Summer Games.
There are sessions on what it means to be an Olympian, how to proudly and graciously represent your country, how to interact with the media, how not to steal priceless statues from hotel lobbies (swimmers, Seoul), how not to trash your room at the village and toss a fire extinguisher off the balcony (hockey, Nagano), how not to use the gold medal as a monocle and the flag as a turban during a victory lap (track and field, Sydney).
How not to be an Ugly American. How [hashtag]everythingisokay.
"Guanabara Bay is not a distraction" _ good.
"We have everything we need at the Athletes Village" _ good.
"Welcome to the Congo!" _ bad.
The exception, the outlier, the Ugly American, is Hope Solo. In 2012, the outspoken goalkeeper engaged in an ugly Twitter rant against NBC commentator and Girls of Summer icon Brandi Chastain. Before Rio, she posted a pictures of herself in a beekeeper's hat holding an industrial-sized container of insect repellent. Brazilian papers reprinted it, and fans here have chanted "Zika" every time she takes a goal kick.
But the rest of the athletes heard the spin, nodded and have willingly complied, cognizant that it actually might help them win a medal and that the rising sponsorship tide of a 2024 Olympics in Los Angeles floats all boats, even ones dodging dead dogs.
