By Andrew Downie / São Paulo

The Maracana soccer stadium (L) and the Maracanazinho volleyball venue in Rio de Janeiro are seen in this illustration released by Comite Rio 2016. The International Olympic Committee will elect the winning bid for the 2016 Olympics on October 2. Chicago Tokyo Rio de Janeiro and Madrid are competing to be the chosen city

If life is fair then the International Olympic Committee will next week declare that Brazil has been chosen to host the 2016 Olympics and thus become the first South American nation to win one of sports’ greatest honors.

At least that’s the claim Brazil is making. The other main contenders are the U.S. Spain and Japan and they’ve all hosted the Olympics before. Brazil meanwhile is a tourist mecca with beaches sun a welcoming population and a vibrant economy whose recent performance has shamed many of its developing world rivals. Rio — and South America — deserves the chance to show what it can do.

“It isn’t right that the Olympics be held in the U.S. for the eighth time” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said recently in what was just one in a series of typical appeals to IOC delegates. “It’s not possible that it be in England in 2012 and in another European country in 2016… It’s not fair that Brazil one of the 10 biggest economies in the world for 30 years that Brazil one of the world’s industrialized countries a nation that has demonstrated its love for sports it’s not fair that Brazil not be chosen.”

Lula has a point but as the former union leader knows life isn’t always fair. If it was then Rio while a front-runner would be in a stronger position to win next Friday’s decision and edge out Chicago Madrid and Tokyo. It can claim experience: Rio hosted the Pan America Games in 2007 an event that should have transformed the still sometimes provincial resort into a more modern more international and safer city.

The problem is it didn’t quite do that. Winning the 2007 Pan American games was considered a big if sometimes chaotic success for Rio. To triumph over rival bidder San Antonio officials used the same argument that this was Rio’s turn. To back that up they promised to transform the city with a new ring road system something called a “via light” railway (presumably a light railway) a new state highway and 54 km of new metro line.

But none of the roads and not one kilometer of proposed metro lines was built. Authorities also promised to clean up the Guanabara Bay the fetid body of water whose smell assails visitors driving into town from the international airport. Although hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent the stench persists and the bay remains a stinking eyesore.

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