Rio Olympics 2016: 15 Interesting Facts you should Know

The 2016 Summer Olympics is going to be held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 5 to 21 Aug. 2016. Here are fifteen interesting things you should know about the Rio 2016 Olympics:

  1. More than 10,500 athletes from 206 countries to participate, apart from a few independent candidates.
  2. 37 Sport Disciplines; 306 Events; 37 Venues.
  3. Apart from Rio – the host city, events to be also held in: Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Manaus, Brasilia. All the cities are in Brazil and the last one is the capital city of Brazil.
  4. Rio de Janeiro is the first South American city to host the Olympics.
  5. Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago were the other cities contesting to host the 2016 Olympics but Rio won the final bid with a vote of 66:32 against Madrid in the last round.
  6. Maracana Stadium in Rio is the largest venue for the games. It has a seating capacity of around 75,000. Opening and closing ceremonies to be held here.
  7. Previous Olympic Edition: London 2012; Next Olympic Edition: Tokyo 2020.
  8. The Rio 2016 games required more than 200 K.M. of security fencing; two large warehouses of more than 1,00,000 sq. K.M. combined storage capacity; 700 K.M. of plumbing connections; 70 K.M. of roads; 650 sq. K.M. of sidewalks; 15,000 trees and a new Tram line!
  9. Baseball and Softball events were excluded from the previous edition; Rugby Sevens & Golf events have been included for this Olympic edition.
  10. Rio firm Tatil designed the winning Logo in a competition involving 139 agencies. Here is the Olympic logo – have a look.
  11. Vinicius and Tom are the Official Mascots of the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics.
  12. For the first time, 85 hours of video content from the Olympics will be available in 360-degree Virtual Reality format exclusively for Samsung Gear VR devices.
  13. For the first time, a blue hockey pitch to be used in the Olympics.
  14. Real (R$) is the present day currency of Brazil. Total Investment for the 2016 Olympics games = R$ 29.6 Billion. (1 USD = 3.25 Brazilian Real.)
  15. The 2016 Olympic Torch Relay was lit in Olympia – Greece, traveled to Athens & Geneva (among other cities) and then reached Brazil. In Brazil, the torch relay will visit more than 300 Brazilian cities and will finally reach Rio de Janeiro.

120 Athletes from India are participating in this Olympics – 37 more than the previous edition. Athletics, Field Hockey and Shooting events are sending the maximum athletes. Let’s wish them all the very best and hope they get more medals than the previous 2012 Olympics, which was 6!

Here is the official website: Rio 2016 Olympics.

Destination Infinity

Reference: Wikipedia article on 2016 Summer Olympics.

16 thoughts on “Rio Olympics 2016: 15 Interesting Facts you should Know

  1. SG

    Thanks for the wonderful information. Doping has become a big issue during this 2016 Summer Olympics. 113 Russian athletes and 2 high profile Indian athletes have been banned from participating. I have no idea how many athletes from other countries are also banned.

    1. Rajesh K

      Yes. It’s sad that people seek drugs in order to win a medal. I think the rules against drugs should be even stricter in order to discourage this practice.

      Destination Infinity

      1. SG

        Make that 1 Indian athlete. Mr. Narsingh Yadav, the 74 kg freestyle wrestler has been given clean chit to participate in the Rio 2016 Olympics.

        1. Rajesh K

          Has he? Good then. One more medal prospect 🙂

          Destination Infinity

  2. Alok Singhal

    All the best to those representing us. I hope they include Cricket as well sometime 😊

    1. Rajesh K

      Yeah. Like Rugby Sevens, they should have some Cricket Fives or something! But I guess the main issue is, not many countries outside the commonwealth play cricket.

      Destination Infinity

  3. Devilish Angel

    Interesting information…

    1. Rajesh K

      Yeah, esp. when the Olympics is about to begin! 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  4. wedding website

    India will win more than 10 medals this Olympics. Cheer for India

    1. Rajesh K

      Let’s hope! 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  5. Jeevan

    Really amazing facts about the Rio Olympics… I wish Indian players bring pride to the country. Looking forward to watch the opening ceremony and i couldn’t image how magnificent it gonna be… but it seems to be held at early morning 4. So i have placed a record for the program to watch later…

    1. Rajesh K

      I too should find out how to record these TV programs to watch later 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  6. sm

    wonderful information let us hope they bring few medals.

    1. Rajesh K

      Yes. Indian hockey team has started on a positive note by winning the first match against Ireland. Let’s hope they continue the momentum.

      Destination Infinity

  7. BIKRAMJIT MANN

    But what Is shameful is that in spite of such a big contingent our athletes are way behind.

    Hockey started good but lost two games. .

    Tennis top out in first round.. fingers crossed for the wrestlers

    1. Rajesh K

      Fingers crossed for the wrestlers, shuttlers and one each in tennis/gymnast/shooting players as well!

      Destination Infinity

Leave a Reply to wedding website Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *