Rio de Janeiro Releases Video Showing Olympic Park Progress

By Jay Forte, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The 31st Olympic Games, and the first ever to be held in South America will happen in Rio de Janeiro in just over a year’s time from August 5th to the 21st, and preparations continue. Yesterday (July 7th) the Rio Municipal Government released an updated version of its video mixing footage of construction work at Barra Olympic Park – the heart of the Rio 2016 Games – with computer-generated images of how the site will look at the time of the Games.

When compared with the previous version of the video, released over six months ago in January, the video highlights the progress being made to prepare the Olympic Park for hosting the majority of the competitions next year.

Venues such as the three Carioca Arenas, the Rio Olympic Veldrome, the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, the Olympic Tennis Centre and the Live Site have developed significantly, allowing viewers to get a feel for how they will be during the Games.

With an area of 1.18 million square metres, Barra Olympic Park will host sixteen Olympic sports and nine Paralympic sports, along with the Main Press Centre and the International Broadcast Centre. During 2016 Olympic Games, some 10,500 athletes will compete in 28 sports, in 35 venues spread across four Olympic Zones: the Barra Zone, Copacabana Zone, Maracanã Zone, and Deodoro Zone.

Ticket sales have had mixed results so far, of the total of 4.5 million tickets, 1.6 million were distributed in this first round of ticketing. In 121 of the 694 sports session, tickets already sold out. Last year the IOC predicted around 480,000 tourists will descend on Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016, and many experts believe this number could be surpassed.

Watch the full video here: