Parade of Nations: The 2016 Rio Olympics will welcome approximately 11,000 athletes from 205 countries, plus a Refugee Olympic Team (refugee athletes who have fled their countries will be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag for the first time) and a team of athletes who will march under the Olympic flag as “Independent Olympic Athletes”.
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A gleaming port district, a new subway line, a light rail service, express bus lanes, a road featuring Brazil’s longest underground tunnel and state-of-the-art sports arenas are just some of the infrastructure projects that have been completed for the Rio Games.
After picking up the torch at a local naval academy, a grinning Paes took it on its first laps through the streets of downtown Rio, known locally as “the marvelous city”. Some take the Olympic rings or the ocean as their central motif, while others are more abstract.
In 2012, Canadian athletes won 18 medals at the London Olympic Games: one gold, five silver and 12 bronze. The blue represents Europe, yellow is Asia, black for Africa, green for Oceania and red for the Americas.
The excitement over Pokemon Go comes amid an array of concerns surrounding the Rio Games, such as the Zika virus, crime and the fallout from Brazil’s unprecedented political and economic crisis.
37 athletes on the Olympic Team are BC Games and / or Team BC alumni (of those, 24 are BC Games alumni, 13 are Team BC alumni and 10 competed at both). In addition to those athletes, 119 Russian athletes have been banned from this year’s games. It’s sure to be a colourful, fun celebration of Brazilian culture, while also being informative about the struggles in the developing world.
The pair have qualified for one more clash in that event in Rio, with Phelps again finishing first and Lochte – the world champion and record holder in the event – second in one of the highlights of the USA trials.
Brazil, he added, had the “last garden in the world” in Amazon and this needed to be protected, though the message would not be that the world would end because of global warming. 21 of the world’s 50 most unsafe cities are in Brazil, and only four are in the United States.
These tweets follow news that Rio’s waters remain severely contaminated with sewage and trash, and that Rio’s air quality is the dirtiest of any Olympics since the 1980s – excluding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. That money will employ 85,000 security personnel, twice as many as were used in London.
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Russia’s depleted team will comprise about 70 percent of the 387-strong squad originally named for the Games. While the various competitions are always fun to watch, there’s nothing quite like the spectacle of an Olympic opening ceremony.
