RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s president is facing impeachment¹. The country’s economy is in sharp decline. Bodies of water that will be used for Olympic competitions are polluted, and global public health officials are trying to tamp² down the Zika virus epidemic³.

里约热内卢――巴西总统面临弹劾。这个国家的经济正在急剧衰退。将被用于奥林匹克竞赛的水体遭到污染，全球公共健康官员正在努力遏制兹卡病毒(Zika)的传播。

With less than 100 days before the Olympic Games come to South America for the first time, Rio de Janeiro faces more than the usual challenges that bedevil host cities, like delayed stadium construction and transportation⁴ concerns. (Rio has those, too.)

再过不到100天，奥林匹克运动会就要第一次来到南美洲。苦恼的主办城市们通常都要面临种种挑战，比如场馆建设延误和交通问题，但里约热内卢要面对的问题远远比这些要多（当然，这些问题里约也有）。

The mood here, however, is hardly one of panic. Officials in charge of executing the Summer Games say they feel insulated from Brazil’s turmoil⁵ at this late stage. The Olympics, after all, tend to exist in their own bubble, elaborately coordinated⁶ to ensure that the multibillion-dollar operation goes off smoothly⁷.

不过这里的情绪很难称得上是恐慌。负责执行夏季奥运会的官员们说，他们觉得，在最后这个阶段，自己和巴西的动荡完全没有关系。毕竟，奥运会往往是存在于自己的小世界，组织者们努力协调，确保这场价值数以十亿美元计的大型活动能够平稳运行。

“The machine is in place, and it’s relatively⁸ stable,” Ricardo Leyser, Brazil’s sports minister, said in an interview this week. “My biggest concern isn’t any individual issue. It’s the small demands that all come at once.”

“机制已经就位，而且相对稳定，”巴西体育部长里卡多·雷瑟(Ricardo Leyser)在本周接受采访时说。“我最大的担心并不是某个具体的问题，而是许多小的需求一下子全都冒出来。”

Local organizers are beginning to lay colorful comforters — patterned with the silhouettes⁹ of cartoon cyclists, fencers and swimmers — on the twin beds in the athletes’ village. They are monitoring the growth of 14-month-old grass that will be transplanted to Maracanã, the storied soccer stadium that will also be used for the opening and closing ceremonies. They are pulling trash from Guanabara Bay, where the Games’ sailing events will be held; mopping up standing¹⁰ water to minimize mosquito breeding; and ramping¹¹ up a round-the-clock security operation — all while publicly expressing little worry about the unrest encircling them.

本地组织者们开始给运动员村双人间的床上铺彩色被子，上面还绣着卡通自行车手、击剑运动员和游泳运动员的身影。他们监控草皮的长势，这些草皮已经生长了14个月，将被移植到传奇的马拉卡纳足球场，也就是奥运会开幕式和闭幕式的举办地。他们在奥运会帆船场地瓜纳巴拉湾清扫垃圾；清理死水，把蚊虫滋生减少到最低；加强全天候的安保——与此同时，他们很少对身边的动荡公开表示忧虑。

On Wednesday, with the handoff of the Olympic flame in Greece and the start of a journey that in little more than a week will bring it to Brazil, the official countdown to the Aug. 5 opening ceremony began.

星期三，奥运火炬交接在希腊举行，经过一周多的传递后将来到巴西，奥运倒计时已经开始，迎接8月5日的开幕式。

In Rio, the race to be ready is intensifying¹², with construction workers here still laboring¹³ on mass transit¹⁴ projects that were key promises seven years ago in the city’s bid to host the Games. Costing several billion dollars, those projects include a new subway line and express bus lanes that connect the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca to the rest of the city, which is expected to swell¹⁵ with more than half a million visitors.

在里约，奥运筹备的赛跑已经进入白热化阶段，建筑工人们仍在忙于修建大型交通项目，它们是七年前这座城市申办奥运会时作出的关键承诺。这些项目造价数十亿美元，包括一条新的地铁线路及若干快速公交路线，把位于巴拉·达蒂茹卡(Barra da Tijuca)的奥林匹克公园和里约的其他地方连接在一起，届时，这里预计迎来超过50万的游客。

As the value of the Brazilian real has drastically declined over the last year, some have expressed doubt that the transit projects will materialize beyond the sleek¹⁶, modernist weather shelters that have been built at various stations. At a news conference Wednesday, the city’s secretary of transportation said the new routes would be ready in time but did not specify¹⁷ when.

因为去年巴西货币雷亚尔急剧贬值，一些人开始怀疑：除了各车站已经盖好的那些漂亮的现代风格风雨棚，这些交通项目到底能不能完成。周三的新闻发布会上，里约交通事务秘书长说，新的线路将及时竣工，但他没有给出具体时间。

To the vast majority of people watching the Games on television, however, such infrastructure¹⁸ may not matter.

不过，对于绝大多数通过电视观看奥运会的人们来说，这样的基础设施可能无关紧要。

The permanent venues¹⁹ for competitions here are mostly complete — all but those for tennis and track cycling — and athletes from around the world have competed in dozens of test events in Rio in recent months. “It’s about the filling of the cake,” Mr. Leyser said. “It’s not about the stadiums; it’s about the scoreboards.”

除了网球场和田径赛道，那些永久性竞赛场馆已经基本完工，最近几个月来，世界各地的运动员们已经在里约参加了几十项测试赛。“现在的工作就是给蛋糕裱花，”雷瑟说，“主要的工作不在于场馆，而在于计分牌。”

As of the latest counts, 62 percent of the 5.7 million tickets on the market had been sold — roughly half of the total tickets for the Olympics — and 24 percent of tickets available for the Paralympics had been sold. But compared with past Olympics, the buyers of those tickets may be disproportionately international, said Andrew Parsons, the president of the Brazilian Paralympic Committee.

据最新统计，市面上的570万张门票已经售出了62%，差不多相当于这届奥运会全部门票的一半，在售的残疾人奥运会门票也已经卖出了24%。但巴西残奥委员会主席安德鲁·帕森斯(Andrew Parsons)说，和往届奥运会相比，本届奥运会赛事门票国外购买者的比例可能会非常高。

For some Brazilians, the country’s political and economic crises have cast a shadow on the celebration. President Dilma Rousseff’s ouster looks increasingly likely amid a sweeping²⁰ graft²¹ scandal, and those in line to succeed her have their own controversies²² hanging over them.

对于一些巴西人来说，这个国家的政治和经济危机已经给这场庆典蒙上了阴影。 巴西总统迪尔玛·罗塞夫(Dilma Rousseff) 身陷大规模的贪腐丑闻，愈来愈有可能遭到罢免，而按照序列有望接替她的人自己头上也笼罩着种种争议。

Questions of corruption²³ have extended to Olympics planning, particularly after a businessman who worked on many Olympic projects in Rio was convicted of corruption and money laundering²⁴ related to separate contracts. Mr. Leyser said that the questions centered on irregularities at the Deodoro event site and that no public official had been accused of wrongdoing.

腐败问题亦延伸到了奥运会的筹备之中，尤其是一名参与里约许多奥运项目的商人被裁定涉及与多份单独合同相关的贪腐和洗钱。雷瑟称，这个问题集中于德奥多罗场馆设施建设中的不规范行为，没有政府官员被控违法。

“It’s more an administrative²⁵ issue than a corruption scheme,” he said. “It’s basically a question of the numbers.”

“这主要是管理问题，而不是腐败阴谋，”他说，“基本上是一个数字问题。”

Mr. Leyser called the devaluation of Brazil’s currency an opportunity because it increases the buying power of foreign money coming into Brazil for the Games.

雷瑟称将巴西货币贬值称为一个机遇，因为它提高了为奥运会而进入巴西的外币的购买力。

But not everyone sees the event as a boon²⁶ to the country. Shirlei Alves, who lives in the Santa Marta favela of Rio, criticized the government for spending on the Olympics in the face of Brazil’s problems.

但是，并非所有人都认为这项活动对国家有益。住在里约贫民区圣玛塔的谢莱·阿尔维斯(Shirlei Alves)批评说，巴西明明有种种问题，政府却把钱花在奥运会上。

“The world is just getting worse here,” Ms. Alves said, noting that she was without medication and electricity. “The government is making a mistake. I’d like if they’d take a better look at the poor people and not help people who are already rich.”

“这里正在变得愈来愈糟，”阿尔维斯说。她说自己既没有药物，也没有电。“政府正在犯错误。我希望他们好好看看穷人们，而不是去帮助那些已经很富裕的人。”

Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, said Wednesday that the city had a “comfortable financial situation” and had spent on stadium construction 1 percent of what it spent on health education.

里约市长爱德华多·帕埃斯(Eduardo Paes)周三说，里约“财政状况良好”，而且花在场馆建设上的钱只是花在健康教育上的1%。

“I know people are skeptical,” Mr. Paes said, citing the “huge deliverables” for the Olympics. “Of course the situation here has been difficult. But there is a commitment of the Brazilian state to deliver the Olympics.”

“我知道人们都在怀疑，”帕埃斯说，他提及奥运会带来的“巨大成果”。“当然，这里的形势一直很困难。但巴西承诺办好奥运会。”

Perhaps the most vexing²⁷ issue for local organizers — the one that may stir anxiety among athletes and spectators — is the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects and temporary paralysis²⁸. Zika is of greater concern outside Rio, in the far north part of Brazil, but the World Health Organization has declared the virus a global public health emergency and has advised pregnant women not to travel anywhere in Brazil.

或许对于本地的组织者来说，最令人烦恼的问题、同时也是有可能令运动员和观众不安的问题，就是由蚊虫传播的兹卡病毒。这种病毒已经被证实与出生缺陷以及暂时性麻痹有关。兹卡疫情在里约之外、巴西偏远的北部更为严重，但世界卫生组织已经宣布这种病毒为全球突发公共卫生事件，同时建议孕妇不要前往巴西任何地方。

“The Olympics is a pretty effective way of taking whatever disease is local and making it global,” said Ashish K. Jha, director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard.

哈佛大学全球健康研究所主任阿希什·K·贾阿(Ashish K. Jha)说：“奥运会是传播任何一种地方疾病、使其变成全球疾病的一种相当有效的方式。”

Some scientists have suggested that by the time the Olympics start in August — wintertime in Brazil, when mosquitoes are less numerous — the virus might be more prevalent in the southern United States.

一些科学家提出，8月奥运会开始时正值巴西的冬天，蚊虫较少，但兹卡病毒在美国南部或许会更流行。

“Zika’s been spreading effectively on its own, but there’s very good reason to think the Olympics will accelerate the spread,” Dr. Jha said.

贾阿医生说：“兹卡病毒自身一直在进行有效传播，但有充分理由认为，奥运会将加快它的传播。”

But the virus poses a unique problem because it is so far beyond the control of local organizing officials, and so many questions about it remain unanswered. Few athletes have publicly expressed concern, but it is unclear how many might withdraw as the Games draw closer.

但这种病毒构成了一个独特的问题，因为它远远超出了本地组委会官员们所能控制的范围之外，而且关于它仍然有许多问题未能得到解答。几乎没有多少运动员公开表达忧虑，但随着奥运会临近，不清楚会有多少人可能退赛。

“At this point you just keep going,” David Wallechinsky, an Olympics historian, said. “You have to continue as if everything’s going to be fine. These are real concerns — Zika, the water quality. But even if Dilma is forced out of office, it’s not going to stop the Olympics.”

“到了这个时候，只能往前走，”奥运史学家大卫·沃利钦斯基(David Wallechinsky)说，“你得继续向前，就像一切都会好起来似的。兹卡病毒、水的质量，这些都是切实的忧虑。但就算迪尔玛被赶下台，也挡不住奥运会。”