As Rio 2016 began, it was hoped that the drama and the excitement of the world's greatest athletes in the world's oldest sporting competition would eclipse the troubles that had marred the pre-Games build-up. In many ways, this was the case: concerns about water pollution were overlooked as the Brownlee brothers fought their way to triathlon glory, and, as Justin Rose putted for gold, the Zika virus' dividing of the golfing world was effectively forgotten.

But while sport dominated the public conscience, Rio 2016 could not shake off its tendency to succumb to problems – while sporting history was written, controversy continued to linger in the background. And so, harnessing all of its inner cynicism, Varsity has documented some of the issues that have blighted South America' first Olympiad.

Should've got some spectators

Brazil never really got behind this Olympics. For many, this was an affair that symbolised a regime in the process of being impeached, a games funded by the pockets of the least affluent. And fair play to the cariocas; they were reluctant customers of a tournament mis-selling itself on legacy and development grounds. 

For a variety of reasons, during many of the finals in this year’s athletics, the Estádio José Havelange was barely a fifth full: spectators were like bodies floating adrift in an ocean of empty blue seats. And, if further proof were needed that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is out of touch, the fact that they predicted 85% attendance at Olympic events is surely it.

Indeed, tickets for evening sessions at the athletics fetched an average price of 745 Brazilian reais, currently £175. By contrast, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) currently estimates the average wage to be 1972 Brazilian reais per month, or just over £460. It does not take a genius to do the maths on that one.

Notably, Brazil’s two most popular sports in football and volleyball were well frequented by the locals, despite the fact that many of the tickets for the volleyball finals went for as much as £285 each and fans who wanted to see Neymar and co. win Brazil’s first Olympic gold medal in football had to part with £230 for the privilege. 

When members of the Brazilian audience were being asked to spend more than half of a month’s average wages to see the sports they most care about, it is hardly any wonder why the local population did not dig deeper to see the ones they do not.

Bothersome behaviour

That said, this might be the first Olympics that would have been improved if even fewer people had turned up. Too many of Rio’s showpiece events were overshadowed by an atmosphere encapsulating all of the pantomimery of a football terrace. Again and again, the Brazilian public chose their heroes and their villains, subjecting them to the kind of indecorous jubilance and jeers that would be expected from a Year Two class at a matinée. 

In fairness, it was not always misplaced. There was plenty of well-intentioned ethical posturing from the Brazilian crowds against proven dopers – a feeling painfully familiar to Justin Gatlin and Yulia Efimova. The latter’s ‘I’m number one’ peacocking from the poolside went down about as well as you would expect.

But it also spilled over into the wanton victimisation of honest competitors, whose only sin was to go tête-à-tête with a Brazilian. Renaud Lavillenie, the favourite for the gold medal in the men’s pole vault, quickly became the casualty of a chorus of abuse hurtling at him from all corners of the José Havelange as it dawned on the locals that he might have the audacity to deprive Thiago Braz da Silva of the title. All appeals for quiet were drowned out, with an irascible carioca crowd affronted by the presence of a non-Brazilian competitor on the field. 

And when Lavillenie took to the podium to collect a richly-deserved silver medal, the Frenchman was moved to tears by a reception he had done nothing to deserve. As da Silva tried in vain to garner applause for a worthy opponent, he found no takers, and the jeering intensified. What a shame, but not just for an honest athlete winning himself a silver medal; Brazil had a platform to air their intolerance of doping in the Games, and it was not taken. Though proven cheats like Gatlin and Efimova fell foul of the disapproving masses, similarly the farcical treatment of decent competitors like Lavillenie made it nought but an empty gesture.

Technically troubled

Before this Olympiad, words like ‘keirin’ and ‘derny’ were hardly well-known to the average Brit. But they became part of the lexicon of one of the most infamous moments of this year’s Games.

Serious deficiencies in Rio’s preparedness to host a global sporting event were revealed thanks to the final of the men’s keirin – a six-lap track race whose pace is set by a ‘derny’, or a motorised bike. When the derny leaves the track at two and a half laps to go, the sprint for the finish begins.

But prematurely overtake the derny at your peril. Any overlap with the derny before it has fully left the track results in an immediate disqualification.

Tuesday’s men’s keirin final descended into farce. The race was brought to a halt as Team GB's Jason Kenny, and Malaysian Azizulhasni Awang, were judged to have overlapped the back wheel of the derny. All of the British viewers who had managed to keep their eyes open long enough to watch Kenny hopefully equal Chris Hoy’s record of six Olympic golds suddenly held their breath.

But they need not have. Though the law is unequivocal, and it seemed clear that Kenny had been the one to make the infringement, a long period of discussion between race officials revealed that the Rio vélodrome lacked the standard photo-finish camera needed to ascertain whether an infringement had been made.

Kenny lived to fight another day. And though the derny was overtaken again - this time unequivocally not by him - the Brit stormed the sprint and took his place next to Sir Chris Hoy among Britain’s most successful Olympians. Something we might not be able to say if Rio had been properly equipped.

Cheats sometimes prosper?

This was an Olympics that could have set a standard, but singly refused to. The IOC’s decision to allow Russian athletes to compete in some disciplines – but not all – was difficult to explain in light of a wealth of damning evidence of a state-sponsored doping regime. Though Russians were nowhere to be seen on Rio’s tracks, there were plenty to be found elsewhere. Including – unfortunately for Ireland’s Michael Conlan – in the boxing ring.

The number one seed in the bantamweight division fell foul of what many believed to be a fixed decision by the judges, as Conlan lost out two rounds to one to Russian opponent Vladimir Nikitin. Most of the Irishman's reaction, broadcast live on RTE, cannot be reprinted here. When the final bell rang and the judges’ decision was announced, Conlan made his feelings abundantly evident by showing both middle fingers to the panel. “I have a big career ahead of me. These ones are known for being cheats, they have always been cheats. Amateur boxing stinks from the core right to the top,” he told Irish television.

In the aftermath, the IOC announced that six judges had been sent home, without so much as naming and shaming them. Yet all results in all weight divisions were allowed to stand.  So this year’s judging was deemed just poor enough to see heads roll, but not quite poor enough to have decisions overturned. With the credibility of an entire Olympic sport in doubt, Rio gave us the best of no worlds. Instead, they delivered a half-hearted search for accountability about as transparent as the diving pool.

Lyin' Ryan

It is safe to say that Ryan Lochte has had a mixed time of it this Olympics. He started off with a disappointing fifth place in the 200m individual medley final, after which he found the time to tell the world that he would be the Michael Phelps of the swimming world, despite not even finishing second in his first individual final and blatantly ignoring the fact that the swimming world already has a Michael Phelps in the first place.

Anyway, Lochte spent the rest of Rio 2016 in a spot of bother. His mother Ileana blabbed to the American press last week that her son had been robbed at gunpoint, and Ryan decided to go along for the ride.

The American spun a yarn of being held up by a gunman to cover up for an altercation at a petrol station, claiming that he and his friends had been pulled over in a cab and held up by armed robbers impersonating police officers. Problem is, none of that ever happened.

Yet swimming’s answer to swimming’s very own Michael Phelps could not help but dub himself the hero.  In an appearance on NBC’s Today Show, the lies seemed to roll from the tongue.  He told them, “They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground – they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground. And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said: ‘Get down,’ and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever’. He took our money, he took my wallet, he left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”

Alas, no. In a press conference called on Thursday afternoon, Brazilian police revealed that Lochte and co. had not been robbed at all, but had been involved in a fracas with security at a petrol station whose bathroom they had vandalised. He and his cronies had simply paid for the damage and left. 

With the ruse discovered, and two of his Team USA teammates detained on the plane primed to take them out of Brazil, Lochte released a statement apologising for his conduct and for ‘not being more careful or candid’ when in Rio.

His statement, which apologised to his sponsors before anyone else, presumably left a lot of people wondering how careful you have to be to avoid going to a foreign country and committing vandalism. And a word of advice to the Olympian - if you do ever feel like throwing caution to the wind by kicking in the door to a toilet stall, probably best not tell your mum you were robbed at gunpoint. Just trust me on this one.