The Olympic message has certainly been lost with Rio

The nations of the world funnel many of their finest athletes into Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad for an event that seems to be making more news even before the competition starts.

The Rio Olympics begin their 18-day run Friday, Aug. 5 with the opening ceremonies in the nearly 70-year-old venue known as the Maracana, the stadium that hosts both the torch lighting ceremony and the closing ceremonies, Aug. 21.

Perhaps in another year — or location — the games themselves might be the topic of conversation. But with Rio, it seems the competition is secondary to a variety of issues that cloud what is set to take place on the field.

Take your pick and the headline du jour might be threats from the Zika virus. Maybe it’s the Russian athletes who have been banned from competing for doping, the political turmoils of the host nation, polluted waters or any number of other issues.

Despite the problems, over 200 nations, and somewhere between 8,000 – 10,000 athletes will compete in 28 sports, including new additions, golf and rugby.

Rio won the bid over Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo in a process that began in 2007 and concluded with final voting on Oct. 2, 2009. The city became the first South American site to host an Olympics.

It is estimated that nearly $30 billion, basically split 50-50 between public and private money, will have been spent on the games. Surprising, perhaps, is that the $5.6 billion spent on Olympic Park is dwarfed by $24 billion earmarked for public transportation.

However, the organizers repurposing of the stadium, built in 1948 and remodeled for soccer’s 2014 World Cup, is saving plenty of Brazilian “reals.” One real equals about 31 cents in U.S. dollars.

But still it seems the bad news outpaces the good.

Zika is scaring away many athletes, and customers, as this mosquito-born virus can inflict serious birth defects. Golfer Jason Day has opted to skip the Games, as has multiple majors winner, Rory McIlroy.

Then there are the Russians. The once formidable Olympic powers struggle to be as dominant as they were before the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet’s advantage of its athletes often being part of their military, and thus paid, changed the face of the games and ultimately ushered use of professional athletes for many nations.

But instead of sending soldiers to compete, using banned substances appears to be their answer. According to a CNN report, of the 270-odd members of the Russian team, 160 are so far eligible. We’ve never seen such a mass disqualification in the Olympics.

That the games are even able to commence at all might be one of the bright spots considering the country’s senate voted to impeach Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff for what was termed, “manipulating government accounts,” and had her presidential duties suspended for six months.

The modern Olympics were originally a place of pure athletic competition, but since have become a political arena.

The Berlin games of 1936 probably saw the first injection of politics with Jesse Owens winning in the presence of the ultimate supremacist, Adolf Hitler. The 1968 games in Mexico City featured the Black Power protest and then the tragedy of the 1972 games in Munich when Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed by members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The many diversions leading up to these games seem to have taken away from the efforts of the athletes who have worked so hard to chase the dream of proudly climbing the medal stand.

Despite all the controversy, we should hold our athletes who compete in high esteem and cheer them on. Hopefully their efforts will provide us with much about with which to cheer and change the conversation to what the Olympic games are supposed to be about, national pride.