Rio seems to have gone absolutely Pan-Am potty.

In cafés, bars, and restaurants in and around Copacabana, people crowded around a television set watching the day’s action is a common scene.

Even the trading stalls lined up along the beaches’ four-kilometre stretch have televisions tuned into the Pan-Am highlights of an evening.

The nation’s newspapers are running special pullout sections on a daily basis, while this reporter even spotted children swapping Panini Pan-Am stickers.

Some of the venues are enjoying sell-out crowds with a healthy number of spectators donning Brazilian football shirts, flags and face-paint.

While the open-air concert stage on Copacabana beach held a presentation for the Brazil’s medals winners who addressed the delighted masses on Saturday night.

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It proved to be a particularly finger-biting taxi journey to the Aquatic Park to watch Kiera Aitken’s pool performance earlier this week.

Rio’s roads are treacherous at the best of times, so the last thing you need is an amiable, but sleepy, driver looking desperately in need of forty winks.

Throughout the one-hour journey from Copacabana to Jacarepagua the increasingly weary taxi driver took it upon himself to grab a few seconds sleep at every traffic lights on route — never a good sign really.

At one point your Games correspondent actually had to give him a sharp nudge in the shoulder to alert him to the change from amber to green! In one last desperate attempt to keep his eyes open for the remainder of the trip, he reverted to cranking up the volume of his stereo to maximum.

Now, a bit of musical accompaniment on a reasonably long journey is all very well but come on . . . Phil Collin’s One More Nigh>? By the look of things the taxi driver was in need of one more good night’s kip . . .

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This reporter received a major confidence boost the other day from Bermuda’ Chef De Mission’s English Interpreter Camille.

Phil Guishard had very kindly offered me a lift to the Pan-Am Village where I could grab a taxi back to my hotel in Copacabana after watching Annabelle Collins’ final performance in the dressage. Sitting in the rear of his chauffeur driven Pan-Am car was a not unattractive Brazilian interpreter who kindly asked how I’d been performing in the Games. Taken aback by her question, I explained that I was in fact just a mere reporter. She looked a little disappointed, but not as disappointed as she may if I’d revealed that my finest sporting hour had in fact come in an Under-13’s inter-school cricket competition in Birmingham!