2016 Summer Olympics

Games of the XXXI Olympiad
Emblem of the 2016 Summer Olympics[A]
LocationRio de Janeiro, Brazil
MottoA New World
(Portuguese: Um mundo novo)
Nations207 (including IOA and EOR teams)[1]
Athletes11,180 (6,146 men, 5,034 women)[1]
Events306 in 28 sports (42 disciplines)
Opening5 August 2016
Closing21 August 2016
Opened by
Closed by
Cauldron
StadiumEstadio do Maracanã
Summer
Winter
2016 Summer Paralympics

The 2016 Summer Olympics (Portuguese: Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016),[C] officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad (Portuguese: Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) 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.[3][4] 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,[5] 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.[6] These were also the first Summer Olympics to take place under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency of Thomas Bach.[4]

The United States topped the medal table, winning the most gold medals (46) and the highest number of medals overall (121); the U.S. team also won its 1,000th Summer Olympic gold medal. Great Britain finished second and became the first country to increase its tally of medals in the Summer Olympiad immediately after being the host nation.[7] 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 (from Kuwait).

Bidding process

[edit]
A young girl adding her signature in support of Rio de Janeiro's candidacy.
Several people dressed in formal attire sit behind a bench. There are repeated graphics behind them.
The bid committee, led by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, giving a press conference.

The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympics was officially launched on 16 May 2007.[8] 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. Doha was not promoted, despite scoring higher than the selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro, because of their proposal to host the Olympics in October, outside the IOC's sporting calendar, added with its problems while hosting the 2006 Asian Games, including deaths and illnesses involving athletes and volunteers. Others included lack of infrastructures, including beds for athletes and media reporters at that time.[9]

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.[10]

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.

Ultimately, you are communicating with just 115 people and each one has influencers and pressure groups but you are still speaking to no more than about 1,500 people, perhaps 5,000 in the broadest sense. It is not just about getting ads out there but it is about a targeted and very carefully planned campaign.

— Jon Tibbs, a consultant on the Tokyo bid[11]

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 (The latter city would eventually be awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2013). 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.

2016 Summer Olympics bidding results[12]
City Country Round
1 2 3
Rio de Janeiro  Brazil 26 46 66
Madrid  Spain 28 29 32
Tokyo  Japan 22 20
Chicago  United States 18

Development and preparations

[edit]

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.[13] Pestana withdrew later during the 2012 Summer Paralympics, and Renato Ciuchin was then appointed as COO.[14]

Venues and infrastructure

[edit]
Venues of the 2016 Summer Olympics

Events took place at eighteen existing venues, nine new venues constructed specifically for the Games, and seven temporary venues.[15]

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.[16][17] Several of the venues were located at the Barra Cluster Olympic Park.[15] 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.[1]

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.[15] The second largest stadium was the 60,000-seat Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos (formerly João Havelange during the Games), which hosted track and field events.[15] 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.[18]

Olympic Park

[edit]
Barra 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.[19]

The nine venues within the Olympic Park were:[20][21]

Football

[edit]

As well as the Estádio Olímpico João Havelange and Maracanã and in Rio de Janeiro, football matches took place at five venues in the cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, and the more distant Salvador, Brasília and Manaus.

Urban renovations

[edit]
Mauá Square, with the Museum of Tomorrow, designed by Santiago Calatrava, and the light rail.

Rio's historical downtown underwent an urban waterfront revitalization project known as Porto Maravilha, covering 5 km2 (1.9 sq mi) 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.[22]

The urban renovation involved 700 km (430 mi) of public networks for water supply, sanitation, drainage, electricity, gas and telecom; 4 km (2.5 mi) of tunnels; 70 km (43 mi) of roads; 650 km2 (250 sq mi) of sidewalks; 17 km (11 mi) 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.[23]

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.[18]

Medals

[edit]
Medals of the 2016 Summer Olympics

The medals were produced by the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (the Brazilian National Mint). 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.[24][25]

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.[26]

Torch relay

[edit]
Basketball player Anderson Varejão carrying the torch in São Paulo
Volunteers working at the Olympic Stadium during the Games

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.[27]

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.[28] The relay ended in Rio de Janeiro on 5 August when the flame was used to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony.

Volunteers

[edit]

Unpaid volunteers performed a variety of tasks before and during the Games. A target of 50,000 volunteers was set as early as 2012. More than 240,000 applications were received when recruitment took place in 2014. The clothing worn by the volunteers included yellow polo shirts and jackets, beige trousers, white socks, and green trainers, which they collected from the Uniform Distribution and Accreditation Centre. Volunteers also wore photo accreditation badges which were allocated to officials, athletes, family members, and media, allowing them to gain access to specific venues and buildings around the site.[29] Many volunteers gave up their roles due to long working hours and insufficient free meals.[30]

Ticketing

[edit]

The ticket prices were announced on 16 September 2014, all of which were sold in Brazilian reais (BRL). A total of 7.5 million tickets were to be sold in total, with ticket prices ranging from BRL 40 for many events to BRL 4,600 for the most expensive seats at the opening ceremony. About 3.8 million of these tickets were available for BRL 70 or less.[31][32]

Sustainability

[edit]
Future Arena, a temporary venue designed for future reconstruction into school buildings

As an aspect of its bid, Rio's organizing committee planned to focus on sustainability and environmental protection as a theme of the 2016 Games, going on to dub them a "Green Games for a Blue Planet".[33] As legacy projects, organizers intended to introduce a wider array of public transport options, upgrade the infrastructure of the favelas to provide improved transport and access to utilities, upgrade Rio's sewer system to remediate the level of pollution in the Guanabara Bay,[33][34] and plant 24 million seedlings to offset the expected carbon emissions of the Games. However, some of these projects met with delays or faced economic shortfalls, leading some critics to believe that Rio would not be able to accomplish them.[33][35]

The focus on environmental protection also influenced the implementation of certain Olympic protocols. To reduce emissions, the Olympic cauldron was designed to be smaller than previous iterations, using a kinetic sculpture to enhance its appearance in place of a larger body of flames.[36] The bronze and silver medals, as well as the ribbons on all medals, were designed to incorporate recycled materials.[24][25] The athletes were not presented with flowers during the medal ceremonies, as had been the tradition at previous Olympics (although floral displays were still used as part of the staging of medal presentations). The organizers considered the practice to be wasteful because the flowers were often thrown away and "would struggle to survive in the tropical Brazilian climate" if kept. The podiums were designed using materials that could be recycled to make furniture.[25][37]

The Future Arena, the venue for the handball competitions, was designed as a temporary modular structure whose components could be reconstructed after the Games to build schools.[38] However, as of November 2017, the arena was still standing due to lack of funds to dismantle it and no allocation of funds to do so in the 2018 budget.[39] Portions of the opening ceremony were dedicated to the issue of climate change.[40]

The Games

[edit]

Opening ceremony

[edit]
A scene from the opening ceremony

The opening ceremony took place at Maracanã Stadium on 5 August 2016, directed by Fernando Meirelles, Daniela Thomas, and Andrucha Waddington.[41] The ceremony highlighted aspects of Brazilian history and culture, and featured a segment narrated by Fernanda Montenegro and Judi Dench with an appeal to environmental conservation and the prevention of global warming.[40][42] The crowd in the stadium numbered 60,000 and the event was broadcast to an estimated global audience of three billion.[5]

The ceremony included the inaugural presentation of the Olympic Laurel, an honor bestowed by the IOC on those that have made "significant achievements in education, culture, development and peace through sport"; the trophy was awarded to Kenyan athlete Kipchoge Keino.[43] The Games were officially opened by the acting president of Brazil, Michel Temer.[44]

The Olympic cauldron was lit by long-distance runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima,[5] the men's marathon bronze medalist at the 2004 Olympics, who had also received the IOC's Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship after being attacked by a spectator and losing his lead in the race.[41][45] The cauldron was originally expected to be lit by Brazilian footballer Pelé, but he declined to participate due to health problems.[42][46][47]

Following the opening ceremony, a public cauldron was lit in front of the Candelária Church by Jorge Gomes, a 14-year-old Brazilian athlete who had escaped from poverty to train as a runner.[48][49]

Sports

[edit]
Youth Arena
Deodoro Stadium
Olympic BMX Centre
Olympic Golf Course

The 2016 Summer Olympic program featured 28 sports encompassing 306 events. The number of events in each of 42 discipline is noted in parentheses.

2016 Summer Olympic Sports Programme

New sports

[edit]

In April 2008, the IOC began accepting applications for two new sports to be introduced to the Olympic programme. Baseball and softball (which were both dropped in 2005), karate, squash, golf, roller sports, and rugby union all applied to be included on the programme. Formal presentations were made to the IOC executive board in June 2009.[50]

In August, the executive board initially gave its approval to rugby sevens—a seven-player version of rugby union—by a majority vote; baseball/softball, roller sports, and squash were removed from contention, leaving golf, karate, and rugby sevens in the running. A final vote was held on 9 October 2009, the closing day of the 121st IOC Session. At this session, a new voting system was in place: a sport now needed only a simple majority from the full IOC committee for approval rather than the two-thirds majority previously required.[51][52]

The 121st IOC Session decided to add rugby sevens and golf to the Rio 2016 Olympic programme.[53] The tally for rugby was 81 in favor, with eight against,[54] and golf was approved by 63 votes to 26.[55] Neither of these two sports was new to the Summer Olympics; rugby last featured in 1924, and golf in 1904.

In May 2012, the International Sailing Federation announced that windsurfing would be replaced by kitesurfing at the 2016 Olympics,[56] but this decision was reversed in November.[57]

Participating National Olympic Committees

[edit]
Rio 2016 Olympic Village

All 205 National Olympic Committees qualified at least one athlete.[citation needed] The first three nations to qualify athletes for the Games were Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, who each qualified four athletes for the team dressage by winning medals in the team event at the 2014 FEI World Equestrian Games.[58]

As host nation, Brazil received automatic entry for some sports including in all cycling disciplines and six places for weightlifting events.[59][60]

The 2016 Summer Olympics were the first Games in which Kosovo and South Sudan were eligible to participate. Bulgarian and Russian weightlifters were banned from Rio Olympics for numerous anti-doping violations.[61][62]

Kuwait was banned in October 2015 for the second time in five years over government interference in the country's Olympic committee. Kuwaiti athletes instead participated as "Independent Olympic Athletes".[63]

Country by team size
Participating countries color code
Blue = Participated for the first time in 2016.
Green = Had previously participated.
Yellow circle is host city (Rio de Janeiro)
Participating National Olympic Committees

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committee

[edit]

11,238 athletes from 207 NOCs

Refugee athletes

[edit]
Refugee Olympic team arriving in Rio de Janeiro

Due to the European migrant crisis and other reasons, the IOC allowed athletes to compete as Independent Olympians under the Olympic Flag. During the previous Summer Olympic Games, refugees were ineligible to compete because of their inability to represent their home NOCs.[64] On 2 March 2016, the IOC finalized plans for a specific Refugee Olympic Team (ROT); out of 43 refugee athletes deemed potentially eligible, 10 were chosen to form the team.[65]

Independent athletes

[edit]

Due to the suspension of the National Olympic Committee of Kuwait, participants from Kuwait were allowed to participate under the Olympic Flag as Independent Olympic Athletes.

In November 2015, Russia was provisionally suspended from all international track and field athletic competitions by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report into a doping program in the country.[66] The IAAF announced that it would allow individual Russian athletes to apply for "exceptional eligibility" to participate in the Games as "neutral" athletes if it was independently verified that they had not engaged in doping nor in the Russian doping program.[67]

On 24 July 2016, the IOC rejected the IAAF and WADA's recommendations to allow athletes to compete neutrally, stating that the Olympic Charter "does not foresee such 'neutral athletes'" and that it was each country's National Olympic Committee decision on which athletes would be competing.[68] As a result, Russian athletes competed under the Russian flag, although they would compete under a neutral flag in the 2018 Winter Olympics following several developments concerning the doping investigation.

National houses

[edit]

During the Games, some countries and continents had a national house. These temporary meeting places for supporters, athletes and other followers were located throughout Rio de Janeiro.[69]

Calendar

[edit]

This is currently based on the schedule released on the same day as ticket sales began, 31 March 2015.[70]

All dates are Brasília Time (UTC–3)
OC Opening ceremony Event competitions 1 Gold medal events EG Exhibition gala CC Closing ceremony
August 2016 3rd
Wed
4th
Thu
5th
Fri
6th
Sat
7th
Sun
8th
Mon
9th
Tue
10th
Wed
11th
Thu
12th
Fri
13th
Sat
14th
Sun
15th
Mon
16th
Tue
17th
Wed
18th
Thu
19th
Fri
20th
Sat
21st
Sun
Events
Ceremonies OC CC
Aquatics
Diving 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 46
Marathon swimming 1 1
Swimming 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Synchronized swimming 1 1
Water polo 1 1
Archery 1 1 1 1 4
Athletics 3 5 4 5 5 4 6 7 7 1 47
Badminton 1 1 2 1 5
Basketball 1 1 2
Boxing 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 4 13
Canoeing Slalom 1 1 2 16
Sprint 4 4 4
Cycling Road cycling 1 1 2 18
Track cycling 1 2 2 1 1 3
BMX 2
Mountain biking 1 1
Equestrian 2 1 1 1 1 6
Fencing 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 10
Field hockey 1 1 2
Football 1 1 2
Golf 1 1 2
Gymnastics Artistic 1 1 1 1 4 3 3 EG 18
Rhythmic 1 1
Trampolining 1 1
Handball 1 1 2
Judo 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 14
Modern pentathlon 1 1 2
Rowing 2 4 4 4 14
Rugby sevens 1 1 2
Sailing 2 2 2 2 2 10
Shooting 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 15
Table tennis 1 1 1 1 4
Taekwondo 2 2 2 2 8
Tennis 1 1 3 5
Triathlon 1 1 2
Volleyball Beach volleyball 1 1 4
Indoor volleyball 1 1