2016 Summer Olympics
The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events in some sports beginning on 3 August. Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host city at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009.
11,238 athletes from 207 nations took part in the 2016 Games, including first-time entrants Kosovo, South Sudan, and the Refugee Olympic Team. With 306 sets of medals, the Games featured 28 Olympic sports, including rugby sevens and golf, which were added to the Olympic program in 2009. These sporting events took place at 33 venues in the host city and at five separate venues in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasília, and Manaus.
These were the first Olympic Games to be held in South America, as well as the first to be held in a Portuguese-speaking country, the first summer edition to be held entirely in the host country's winter season, the first since 1968 to be held in Latin America, and the first since 2000 to be held in the Southern Hemisphere. These were also the first Summer Olympics to take place under the International Olympic Committee presidency of Thomas Bach.
The United States topped the medal table, winning the most gold medals and the highest number of medals overall ; the U.S. team also won its 1,000th Summer Olympic gold medal. Great Britain finished second and the only country to increase its tally of medals in the Summer Olympiad immediately after being the host nation. China finished third. Host nation Brazil won seven gold medals and 19 total medals, its best result at any Olympics, finishing in thirteenth place. Bahrain, Fiji, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Tajikistan, and Vietnam all won their first gold medals, as did the group of Independent Olympic Athletes.
Bidding process
The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympics was officially launched on 16 May 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee by 13 September 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files containing answers to a 25-question IOC form were to be submitted by each city by the deadline of 14 January 2008. On 4 June 2008, two months before the Beijing Olympics, four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo, which had already hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964. Three cities—Baku, Doha, and Prague—failed to reach the candidature phase.Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco headed the 10-member Evaluation Commission, having also chaired the evaluation commission for the 2012 Summer Olympics bids, which was awarded to London, United Kingdom. The commission made on-site inspections in the second quarter of 2009. They issued a comprehensive technical appraisal for IOC members on 2 September, one month before the elections.
Many safeguards were put in place to prevent bidding cities from communicating with or directly influencing the 115 IOC members eligible to vote in the elections. For example, cities could not invite any IOC member to visit, nor could they send anything that could be construed as a gift. Nonetheless, bidding cities invested large sums in their PR and media programs to indirectly influence the IOC members by garnering domestic support and backing from sports media and general international media.
The final voting was held in Copenhagen on 2 October 2009, with Madrid and Rio de Janeiro considered favorites to secure the Games. Chicago was eliminated after the first round of voting, and Tokyo after the second. Rio de Janeiro took a significant lead over Madrid, heading into the final round; the lead was held, and Rio de Janeiro was announced as host of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Development and preparations
On 26 June 2011, it was reported on Around The Rings that Roderlei Generali, the COO of the Rio de Janeiro Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, resigned just one year after taking the job at ROOC. This came just five months after CCO Flávio Pestana quit for personal reasons. Pestana withdrew later during the 2012 Summer Paralympics, and Renato Ciuchin was then appointed as COO.Venues and infrastructure
Events took place at eighteen existing venues, nine new venues constructed specifically for the Games, and seven temporary venues.For the events held in Rio de Janeiro, each event was held in one of four geographically segregated Olympic clusters–Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro, and Maracanã–as was done for the 2007 Pan American Games. Several of the venues were located at the Barra Cluster Olympic Park. Nearly half of the athletes could reach their venues in less than 10 minutes, and almost 75 per cent could do so in less than 25 minutes. Of the 34 competition venues, eight underwent some permanent works, seven were totally temporary and nine were constructed as permanent legacy venues.
The largest venue at the Games in terms of seating capacity was the 75,000-seat Maracanã Stadium, which served as the ceremonies venue and site of the football finals. The second largest stadium was the 60,000-seat Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos, which hosted track and field events. The athletes' village was said to be the largest in Olympic history. Fittings included about 80,000 chairs, 70,000 tables, 29,000 mattresses, 60,000 clothes hangers, 6,000 television sets and 10,000 smartphones.
Olympic Park
The Barra Olympic Park is a cluster of nine sporting venues in Barra da Tijuca, in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The site was formerly occupied by the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, also known as the Jacarepaguá Formula One circuit.The nine venues within the Olympic Park were:
- Carioca Arena 1 – basketball
- Carioca Arena 2 – wrestling, judo
- Carioca Arena 3 – fencing, taekwondo
- Future Arena – handball
- Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre – diving, synchronized swimming, water polo
- Olympic Aquatics Stadium – swimming, water polo play-offs
- Olympic Tennis Centre – tennis
- Rio Olympic Arena – gymnastics
- Rio Olympic Velodrome – track cycling
Football
Urban renovations
Rio's historical downtown underwent an urban waterfront revitalization project known as Porto Maravilha, covering in area. The project aimed to redevelop the port area, increase the city center's attractiveness, and enhance Rio's competitive position in the global economy.The urban renovation involved of public networks for water supply, sanitation, drainage, electricity, gas and telecom; of tunnels; of roads; of sidewalks; of bike path; 15,000 trees; and three sanitation treatment plants. As part of this renovation, a new tram was built from the Santos Dumont Airport to Rodoviária Novo Rio, due to open in April 2016.
The Games required over 200 kilometers of security fencing. A 15,000 square meter warehouse in Barra da Tijuca was used to assemble and supply the furniture and fittings for the Olympic Village. The second warehouse of 90,000 square meters in Duque de Caxias, near the roads that provide access to the venues, contained all the equipment needed for the sporting events.
Medals
The medals were produced by the Casa da Moeda do Brasil. The medal design was unveiled on 15 June 2016. They were designed to be environmentally friendly using recycled materials; the bronze and silver medals contained 30% recycled materials. The gold medals were produced using gold that had been mined and extracted according to a set of sustainability criteria, such as being extracted without the use of mercury. The medals feature a wreath design on the front, and in keeping with tradition, the obverse features Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. A wooden carrying box accompanied each medal. Medalists were also awarded a trophy in the shape of the Games' emblem.In May 2017, an Associated Press article disclosed that over 100 athletes who had won medals at the Rio Olympics reported that their medals were showing some damage, including black spots, flaking, or surface degrading. Rio officials offered to replace any defective medals and found problems with 6 to 7 percent of all those awarded.
Torch relay
The Olympic flame was lit on 21 April 2016 at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, the traditional start of the Greek phase of the torch relay. The flame was handed over to the Brazilian organisers in a ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens on 27 April. A brief stop-off was made in Switzerland to visit the IOC headquarters and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, as well as the United Nations Office at Geneva.The torch relay began its journey around Brazil on 3 May at the capital Brasília. The flame visited more than 300 Brazilian cities, including all 26 state capitals and the Brazilian Federal District. The relay ended in Rio de Janeiro on 5 August when the flame was used to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony.