Chavez casts divisive shadow over Venezuelan sport at Games

When Venezuelan fencer and former sports minister was eliminated in her second-round bout at the Rio Games, she wore a uniform emblazoned with the eyes of the country's divisive late leader, Hugo Chavez. Back home, it was too much for TV viewers who blame Chavez and his followers for a collapsed economy, and they went online to say the revolutionary's eyes had brought her bad luck. Benitez, 36, promptly hit back in a video, this time donning a t-shirt with a stylized drawing of the leftist politician's eyes over the Olympic rings: "Look at the beautiful eyes of my 'Comandante', so that it hurts you even more," she said. The acrimonious politics of Venezuela had arrived in Rio. More…