Japanese attending the Rio Olympics say they have found the host city safer than they were led to believe and are looking forward to welcoming the world at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Rio de Janeiro was hampered by a major image problem in the build-up to the 2016 Olympics, with media around the world reporting rising street crime, poor sanitation and an outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil's second-biggest city.
A strike by police officers and firefighters on the eve of the games did not help matters — one group greeted new arrivals to the city's international airport with a sign reading "Welcome to Hell" — but Japanese visitors to the Olympic venues told The Japan Times that the situation is better than they expected.