Brazilians flooded Copacabana Beach on a sunny afternoon seven years ago, on the day the International Olympic Committee announced that Rio de Janeiro would host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
With the eyes of the world on his country ― then one of the world’s fastest-growing economies ― then-president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, known to Brazilians simply as “Lula,” promised his people that this would be their moment in the spotlight.
