Out-Of-Control Garbage Fire Reportedly Sets Olympic Mountain Bike Course Ablaze

Mountain biking at the Rio Olympics doesn’t start until this Saturday, but the event is already running into problems. Specifically, the course is on fire.

There were high winds today in Rio, which caused organizers to suspend this evening’s track and field program. The fire also reportedly left the field hockey field littered with ash.

The apparent cause was a garbage fire that got out of hand. I don’t mean this metaphorically, in the way that “garbage fire” is often used as a cheap stand-in for “bad” because I can’t come up with any less-played-out turns of phrase. I mean that a bunch of actual garbage caught on actual fire.

Canadian Cyclist reports that the stands and parts of the course are threatened, and that a full assessment will be performed tomorrow. News.com.au reports that mountain bikers have been evacuated from the park.

We’ll update this post as more information becomes available.