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Old June 30th, 2016 #1
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Post BRAZIL - Meet the jewish Triumvirate in charge of theRio 2016 Olympics

The Organizing Committee president is Carlos Arthur Nuzman; Sidney Levy is the committee’s chief executive officer and Leonardo Gryner is the deputy CEO.

Mazel tov! That’s perhaps how the big shots in charge of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the first to take place in South America, will toast victories when the competition gets underway Aug. 5.

Three of the top officials of the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, including its president, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, are Jewish.

But in the run-up to the games, there have been more “oy gevalts” than mazel tovs as organizers deal with reports of unfinished venues, polluted swimming and sailing sites and, most of all, concerns about the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

In an interview with JTA, Nuzman said the number of Zika cases in Rio have dropped sharply in recent weeks, and are expected to fall even further during the dry months of the Brazilian winter, as Rio 2016 organizers emphasized at a news conference on June 7. Last month, the World Health Organization said there is no public health justification for postponing or canceling the Games.

“None of the top athletes have declared not to come. If there’s a second-layer one who won’t come, good for him,” an irritated Nuzman told JTA.

One of Brazil’s most prominent sports figures, Nuzman, 74, is a former president of the Brazilian Volleyball Confederation and has been president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee since 1995.

Nuzman preferred to talk about the robust Jewish connections at the games, including a ceremony to honor the 11 Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Israeli company that is providing security for the games and his own deep ties — as an athlete, sporting official and Jew — to Brazilian sports.

“My connection with Judaism and with Israel is through sports,” said Nuzman, who was part of the first Brazilian male volleyball team in 1964 when the sport debuted at the Olympic Games. “I started my career playing at the Brazilian Israelite Club and I have attended four Maccabiah Games in Israel.”

The grandson of Russian immigrants, Nuzman was born in Rio, home to an estimated 40,000 Jews. He is an active member of the 440-family Conservative synagogue Congregacao Judaica do Brasil led by Rabbi Nilton Bonder, his nephew. Nuzman’s father, Izaak, presided over the Rio Jewish federation, the Hebraica Club and the local Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal.

“He was one the greatest leaders of our Jewish community. He brought [David] Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir to Brazil,” Nuzman boasted, noting the late prime ministers of Israel.

Nuzman relies on other prominent members of the local Jewish community as deputies. Sidney Levy, a business executive, is the Rio 2016 committee’s chief executive officer and has a $2.2 billion budget to manage. Leonardo Gryner, a communications and marketing director who was part of the Rio 2016 bid, is deputy CEO.

“I have no connection to sports at all,” Levy said in an interview pu

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read full article at source: http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/20...2016-olympics/
 
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