If the members of the International Olympic Committee award the 2016 summer Games to Rio de Janeiro, it will become the first South American city to become an Olympic host. A win for Rio will be a new chapter in the Olympic movement. As one of the final four, it has a real chance – better than ever before.

It is the first time that the city has made it to the candidature phase of the bidding process, after four previous failed attempts in the 1936, 1940, 2004 and 2012 Games. It is an astonishing record of failure both for Rio and the continent.

In retrospect, it is not a surprise. Rio’s failures have been the result of a lack of existing infrastructure, security concerns and little to no experience of organising and hosting international sporting events. However, changes have occurred of late which make the city a viable contender for the first time.

Firstly, Rio successfully hosted the 2007 Pan American Games. Secondly, it has won the bid to host Fifa’s 2014 World Cup. But, of course, that also might work against it as the IOC might be reluctant to give the city a second world class event within two years of its having hosted another.

Many hurdles are still to be overcome. In June 2008, Rio 2016 scored eight out of ten in the IOC’s working group evaluation, the lowest of the four cities. Its lowest individual score was 6.4 for accommodation and the highest was 8.8 in government support. In this category, bookmakers’ favourite, Chicago, also only scored 8 points. It might go in Rio’s favour, however, that the cities with the highest technical mark don’t always go on to secure the necessary votes from IOC members. The IOC is more concerned with legacy, and it is here that Rio may come into its own.

Carlos Roberto Osório, the Rio 2016 bid’s secretary general, believes that the time has come for Rio: “We have arrived at a moment where the IOC have the chance to make a historic decision, to open the door for the Olympic movement to all continents, to all countries and to give the Olympics to the country that has shown the capacity to host, the transparency and the support from the Government.” These are brave and magnificent words, but will they cut any ice when it’s time for the IOC members to vote? Will the IOC trust Rio to run its most prized asset? The truth is that for as many people who think it will, an equal number are adamant that it will not.

Osório is working closely with the Brazilian Olympic Committee president, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, on managing the bid. The most important Olympic official in his country, Nuzman has taken charge of the bid and insists that the successful hosting of the Pan American Games – another multi-sport event – is proof that Rio is ready to be an Olympic host.

“We are now ready for the Olympics,” Nuzman asserts. “We’ve proved it with the Pan-American games, which we knew was going to be a challenge for us, and the result was that international federations, the IOC and the press gave us 100 per cent of approval in saying it was the best Pan-Am games ever. And we’ve proved it with this project.”

He adds: “We don’t want a gift, we are ready to organise the Games. The motivation to have the Games in Rio, in Brazil, for the first time, is to have the best athletes in the world in our country and to be included in the Olympic circuit for international sport. It’s a sporting country; the whole of Brazil loves sport.”

Certainly, nobody in Brazil loves sport more than Nuzman himself. A former Olympian, the 68-year-old competed in the male volleyball event at the 1964 Games in Tokyo. He competed professionally from 1957 to 1972, which included six years representing Brazil. He believes it is vital that Rio is given its chance, if only for the common good: “The legacy will change the city. I put the changes the Olympics will bring to Rio on the same levels as the changes made in Seoul, Barcelona, Sydney and Beijing; even Tokyo in 1964, the Games changed the image of the city after the Second World War.”

Nuzman has already announced plans for a new Olympic Training Centre, a first for Brazil. It is already a guaranteed legacy to the bid, which he says will be built regardless. The extent to which the IOC’s media contracts play a role in the final decision has always been shrouded in some mystery. What is clear, however, is that the American television schedules are the most significant. It follows that any Games falling into the same or similar time zones could potentially be the most profitable. That is, of course, a major advantage to Chicago’s bid, but also to Rio’s as Nuzman is all too pleased to explain.

“The time difference from the USA to Rio is just one hour”, he says. “This is very, very strong for us. After Beijing, which was on the opposite side of the world, and even with London and the rest of Europe, there will be a difference again.”

Under the plans submitted to the IOC, a high performance transport ring will be created around the city and a hub-and-spoke network of special lanes will ensure that athletes and spectators can travel around the various Olympic sites efficiently. The Brazilian government is already investing money into the country’s transport system ahead of the 2014 World Cup, including a renovated suburban railway system, an upgraded metro system and three new so-called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines.

But trust is the biggest problem that Rio faces. The economy and the political situation are not the most stable in the world. There is also the internal security problem to overcome. Many opinion formers doubt whether, in terms of infrastructure as well as socially and economically, Brazil is stable enough to plan, implement and host the Games. It is seen by many as more of a ‘risk’ choice than the ‘safe’ bids from America, Japan and Spain.

Rio’s bid secretary Osório, however, insists that the bid is one of “certainty.” He says: “That’s what we want to show the IOC and the world. We are certain of everything that is in our bid book and we have the guarantees to prove it. We went the extra mile because of the current economic crisis to prove we are ready and can start working and deliver the Games.”

There is also the question of whether Rio has the actual physical ability to host an Olympic Games two years after a soccer World Cup, a task that would be challenging at the very least for countries with far greater hosting experience. When Fifa awarded Brazil the right to stage its showpiece event in 2014, it was not greeted with widespread joy, especially amongst the country’s Olympians. Initially, it was thought that it would kill the Olympic bid stone dead.

However, Nuzman is confident that it is not a problem, neither to him nor to the IOC: “Hosting the 2014 [Fifa] World Cup helps us,” he argues. “Jacques Rogge [IOC president] has given several interviews saying that this helps our Olympic bid and Joseph Blatter [Fifa president] has also said the same thing. Mexico did it in 1968/70 and Germany in 1970/74 and United States 1994/96 and now preparing a bid for the soccer World Cup in 2016 is Spain, Japan and United States [the other Olympic 2016 bid countries]; they will follow us. But we already have the World Cup.”

He adds: “There is a huge synergy between the two events. It will deliver infrastructure, trains, public services and ready personnel. It is a real positive that Brazil is hosting the World Cup two years before.”