RIO Olympics – a mountain of problems to make even Zeus wince

The Rio Olympics starts tonight with even more trepidation than normal. Horror stories abound with sewage and corpse-strewn waters for some events; unsafe and unfinished accommodation and stadiums. And poverty stricken Rio’s crime rate, bad at the best of times, is escalating wildly. A man claiming to be a Russian vice consul (denied by the Russians) shot and killed a robber on the motorway yesterday; a Moroccan boxer is being held on suspicion of sexually assaulting two cleaners; the Chinese say their fencers were robbed; ditto other athletes. The Brazilian President won’t attend since she’s suspended under impeachment charges. And that’s not even getting to the zika virus or doping furore which nearly saw Russian athletes banned altogether.

The Opening Ceremony chart, assuming a 8pm start, has a friendly, expansive 7^th house Moon Jupiter in Virgo trine Pluto – so there should be a warm welcome from the hosts. The problems may all come from the Neptune opposition Node Mercury square Mars Saturn in Sagittarius – a focal point of Mars Saturn is will bring high-level irritation, is accident-prone, has associations to the military and sometimes to killings.

Mercifully the exact Mars Saturn conjunction only occurs three days after the Olympics finishes. But the Moon in transit will make two hard aspects to Mars Saturn, conjunct on the 12^th and square on the 19^th. So the whole event will be conducted on tenterhooks.

The IOC (International Olympics Committee), 23 June 1894 Lausanne, Switzerland, certainly looks nerve-wracked and edgy with tr Saturn square the Solar Arc Uranus throughout, and will face a decidedly sinking post-mortem with tr Saturn square tr Neptune hitting the Pluto and Neptune in the aftermath; with an uphill, discouraging slog through 2017/18.