While most of the world’s attention was turned to the Olympic sporting events in Rio de Janeiro, a different type of athletic challenge was taking place in the steep and cramped neighborhood known as a favela.
Mountain biker Filip Polc recently filmed his Point-of-View descent down the narrow alleyways of one of Rio’s poorest neighborhoods in this stunning video put out by Red Bull Sports.
Many people from Rio’s slums have protested the Olympic games for diverting so much of the nation’s resources to building stadiums and new venues while so many people suffer in poverty.
A first hand look at the favelas, even one as shaky and nail-biting as this thrilling descent, helps in some small way to focus attention on the plight of Rio’s poor, while at the same time giving us a pretty cool first-person video.
