Why Brazil's Olympic Gold Could Boost Its New President
Why Brazil's Olympic Gold Could Boost Its New President
If history is any guide, Brazil’s Olympic gold may be remembered as a turning point in the crisis.
The year was 1994, and a depressed Brazil was desperately in need of a lift. Recent years had seen a president impeached for corruption, inflation in excess of 2,500 percent, horrendous massacres of innocents inside a prison and outside a church, and a general feeling the country couldn’t do anything right. As June approached, so did two seemingly unrelated events that looked destined to add to this record of failure – the launch of a new currency, and the soccer World Cup.
Brazil hadn’t won a Cup for 24 years – an almost unprecedented stretch that had many questioning whether...
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