Canadian fencers give positive reviews on Olympic venue

Canada's fencing team has returned from an Olympic test event in Rio De Janeiro more prepared for the Games than intimidated by the swirling doubts around the organizers' readiness.

Canadian sabre-athlete Joseph Polossifakis and foil-athlete Eleanor Harvey were competing in the team world championships finals at the same venues they'll be competing in individually come August.

Carioca Arena 3 different than many other fencing arenas

"I really liked it," Harvey told CBC Sports of Carioca Arena 3. "The venue was different from anything I've seen before in terms of the set up of the fencing pistes [the area the fencers compete in.]

"It's really easy to see what was going on and easy to keep track of all the bouts that were happening. It kind of made it seem more exciting, too."

Both athletes said the venue seemed mostly completed. Polossifakis noticed a few backstage details that needed to be figured out but walked away from the experience happy.

"That was some priceless, priceless experience," he said. "Just going into a new arena there's always a little bit of adaptation. You always have these exterior distractions that are possible to come into play.

"When you've already been through it once it's much easier."

Velodrome among venues still not finished

The Canadian athletes got a chance to visit the Olympic Park and do some touring around the city. Not everything was as complete as the fencing venue.

"In terms of the Olympic park, my venue and the other venues, [all] look great except for the velodrome," said Polossifakis. "Which looks at this point more like the ancient Colosseum of Rome than a velodrome."

Both also noticed the construction happening on the roads.

"On the way to the venue what you do see is that they are working hard on getting the transportation for the everyday people and the tourists," said Polossifakis. "I don't know what is customary 100 days out of the Games but it looked like to me there was a lot of things to do.

"But in terms of [athletes] logistics we were getting back and forth pretty easily."

Equipped with bug repellant to fight Zika virus

Canada's fencing team came equipped with bug repellant, and it either worked really well or there just weren't that many mosquitoes around.

Harvey's teammate got a bite or two, but she didn't notice the mosquitoes despite being all over Rio in a bus tour.

"One of our organizers brought [repellant] and we put it on but I probably should have been a little more careful than I was," Harvey said. "I should have brought my own and have it at all times but I did most of the time wear bug repellant."

Polossifakis didn't notice the mosquitoes at all, but that won't stop him from being careful come the Games.

"You know what's funny, I brought so [much bug repellant]. I was spraying myself head to toe every night and I was going outside and I couldn't find one mosquito," he said.

"I'm still going to be wearing [repellant] and getting all the precautions, but it definitely wasn't something that worried me this time around."