Brazil has enjoyed success both on and in the water at past Olympics. With six gold, three silver, and eight bronze, sailing has been their most successful Olympic event, while with one gold, four silver, and eight bronze, swimming is not far behind in terms of the haul of medals.
But Rio 2016 is a home Olympics, and quite naturally Brazil wants to make the biggest splash possible. Its record in diving is far from illustrious, because diving is hardly conducive to the Brazilian psyche. From the dance floor to the football pitch, the spirit of samba is all about movement in the hips, whereas to earn the big points in diving, judges emphasise precision transitions and a straight entry.
Seeking straightness and no doubt a little goodwill, Brazil has turned to its iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer. The Art Deco masterpiece stands 38 metres tall at the peak of Corcovado mountain, overlooking all of the Marvelous City. It won a place in 2007 as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and its construction between 1922 and 1931 makes it roughly contiguous with Brazil’s place in the modern Olympics.
A late and somewhat contentious entry, Christ the Redeemer is set to compete in Rio in the men’s 10-metre platform, although inevitably the statue will be tumbling from a much higher distance. The plan is to detach the statue – which weights a whopping 635 metric tonnes – from its pedestal, allowing it to fall free-form down the Corcovado mountain. Who can imagine the sort of twists and turns, the peculiar pikes and tucks which Christ the Redeemer will somehow achieve as it hurtles down the mountain face?
30 metres tall without its pedestal, its arms stretching out 28 metres wide usually towards heaven, there was some thought for the statue’s sake of switching the diving competition to the Guanabara Bay or the Lagoon of Rodrigo de Freitas. The pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Center meets Olympic regulations, but was hardly built to fit this. However with Christ the Redeemer constructed out of soapstone, it was decided that neither it nor any of the other divers would survive Rio’s sewage-strewn waters.
