Rio 2016 Barra Olympic Park 92 Percent Complete

By Georgia Grimond, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio de Janeiro City Hall, which is overseeing the construction work of the venues for the 2016 Olympic Games, has announced that the Barra Olympic Park is 92 percent ready. In Deodoro, the next largest Games site, some arenas are finished and the canoe slalom is 98 percent built.

A total of sixteen new venues are being constructed for the Olympic and Paralympic Games which will take place next August and September.

Nine sport sites at the Olympic Park in Barra, the “heart of the Games”, have reached a ninety percent completion rate or more. They include three Carioca Arenas, the Main Press Centre, International Broadcast Centre, Futuro Arena and the Aquatic Stadium.

In Deodoro, in Rio’s Zona Norte (North Zone), the BMX and Mountain Bike tracks are finished and have already held Aquece Rio test events on the courses.

Figures from mid-October show construction of the Olympic Hotel (84 percent complete), Velodrome (seventy percent complete) and the Tennis Centre (eighty percent complete), which are all in Barra, going at a slower rate. The Youth Arena in Deodoro was also only 68 percent finished.

In Brasília, there are doubts over whether the Mané Garrincha National Stadium, which was built especially for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, will be able to afford to host some of the Olympic football games. The cash-strapped capital is struggling to bear the cost of the country’s most expensive stadium.

A number of test events are scheduled for the end of the year, beginning with boccia, table tennis, badminton and boxing to all be played at Rio Centro Pavilion 4; hockey at the Olympic Hockey Centre; canoe slalom at the Whitewater stadium and tennis at Olympic Tennis Centre. The tennis competition will be the first to take place in the Barra Olympic Park.

For details of which venue will hold which sport, look at the Rio 2016 venue map.