“Last night (Saturday), we decided to do a “stress test” where taps and toilets were simultaneously turned on in apartments on several floors to see if the system could cope once the athletes are in-house. The system failed. Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments and there was shorting in the electrical wiring.” In other words, the accommodations at Rio’s Olympic village are not earning rave reviews. Every Olympics is preceded by a series of horror stories and then the event goes off without a hitch. Will this year break that model?

+ A New Zealand athlete claims he was kidnapped by the police in Rio.