Well, that didn't take long. A force of 100 thousand military and police spread across Rio, with an armed officer on virtually every corner, was still not enough to prevent a Channel Nine crew experiencing a mugging, or at least what's being called a "near-mugging", on Rio's famous Copacabana Beach.
Channel Nine's reporter Christine Ahern confirmed to Melbourne radio station 3AW that on Monday, she was accosted on Copacabana Beach as she was about to film a piece to camera.
"We stepped straight off the plane. It was night time and we had to do a piece to camera. We headed straight to the beach and had a security team with us. We were only walking a block but he recommended we put our camera in a bag. We thought that was overkill.
There were police on the corner and I walked past them and felt pretty safe... but it all happened in a flash. There was a group of transvestites and one came straight for my cameraman Glen. They tried to get the bag which contained the camera, and that's when our security guard intervened."
The would-be thief didn't get the camera. But the security guard, who is ex-British special forces, copped a knock on the head for his trouble.
"He did get clocked on the head by the bag which obviously had a brick or something inside it because it was pretty hard.
He then quickly ushered us into the lobby of a hotel and we were out of harm's way."
Ahern said the attack appeared to be opportunistic rather than planned.
"I was told before I came it was going to be luck whether you get rolled or not, and I have to say it was luck.
There was quite a lot of police around, but [thieves] are not too fussy about the police presence. There are guys with massive guns on every corner but you still have to have your wits about you."
The Rio Olympics Opening Ceremony is on August 5.