“The cariocas are getting ready to host the biggest sporting event in 2016”
A year before the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro is a city in an accelerated motion; rehearsing, training, driving, constructing , calculating and preparing for the biggest event in its history.
With barely a year to go until the opening ceremony, the amount of work still to do seems overwhelming despite those in charge insisting that the $25.9 billion Olympic construction project is on schedule. And it’s not just sporting venues which are under construction in Rio. All over the sprawling city other Olympic-related public and private projects can be seen taking form, from new flyovers and road systems, to new metro links tunnelling through the mountains, to new museums and the regeneration of the city’s port. City authorities deny they have taken on more than they can deliver and that everything will be ready on time to welcome the world on August 5, 2016, even if works go right to the wire.
The games will take place from 5 August to 21 August 2016 and more than 10,500 athletes from 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) will take part in this sporting event. The games will host 28 sports spread across 33 venues in 4 regions of the city namely -Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro, and Maracanã.
The setting for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio will be a lagoon-side peninsula with 15 sports venues dotted along a network of snaking pathways, as detailed in this new set of visuals by masterplanners AECOM .
These aerial photos reveal how Brazil faces the biggest race in Olympic history to be ready for world’s biggest sporting event.
The Olympic Park in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood.
The venues closest to completion are the Arena do Futuro (square building left) which will host handball event, and the three connected Carioca Stadiums, which will host sports such as fencing, taekwondo, judo and basketball.
The Athletes’ Village, situated beside the Olympic Park, will provide accommodation to around 15,000 competitors.
The Velodrome (nearest left) and Tennis Centre (the arena ) .
An earlier render of what the Olympic Park will look like when it is completed next year.
AECOM’s winning masterplan design for the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games is built on a vision which creates a global stage for the Games of 2016, but also, in the longer term, creates a new legacy district with new homes, jobs and places for leisure activities. The Olympic Park and key venues will eventually become a global centre of sporting excellence, with the creation of Brazil’s first national Olympic Training Centre, which utilizes the permanent legacy venues.
Read more
- London’s Olympic Legacy Opens Up
- New National Stadium for Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics
- Questions for Cape Town Stadium and Greenpoint
Credits
- Photos by Renato Sette Camara / Prefeitura do Rio
- Photos by Alex Ribeiro