(ATR) Aimed at creating a legacy for youth, the newly-released plan for Rio de Janeiro’s bid for the 2016 Olympics calls for an “X” park filled with sports with high appeal for young people.
The X Park and other details of the Rio de Janeiro bid were unveiled at an event Tuesday at the Museum of Modern Art that included representatives of all levels of government.
“Everyone is excited about this bid, the people, the government”, Carlos Osorio, secretary general of the Brazilian Olympic Committee tells Around the Rings.
He says the plan for the Games is based on two concepts, using the venues and experience of the Pan American Games and the comments of the IOC report which eliminated Rio de Janeiro from the race for 2012 four years ago. He says that means a better layout for venues and more feasible plans for transport.
Among the major points unveiled in the presentation include the site for the opening and closing ceremonies and the final for football: Maracana Stadium. Osorio says the stadium will be fully renovated to prepare for the 2014 World Cup, leaving little to do for the Olympics. Preliminary rounds of football will be hosted in Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Salvador and Sao Paolo, all with venues fresh from the 2014 World Cup, as well.
Nearby Maracana in the north of the city, Joao Havelange Stadium, newly-built for the 2007 Pan American Games, will expand from its current 45,000 seats to be used as the venue for athletics.
The X Park in the Deodoro district of western Rio De Janeiro will feature mountain biking, BMX cycling and canoe kayak.
“These are the X sports of the Olympics,” says Osorio, who says the park will feature a “spectator experience”. He says the plan “is to make a connection between the Games and the youth, which is one of the IOC’s major strategic goals”.
Equestrian and modern pentathlon and archery preliminaries will also be held in Deodoro.
New details for the previously announced Olympic Park in Barra de Tijuca were disclosed at the event Tuesday. Barra, in western Rio de Janeiro, the center of venues for the Pan Am Games, will serve the same role in a 2016 Olympics, notes Osorio, with 20 sports planned in the precinct.
Currently a motorcar racetrack on the shore of a large lagoon, the Rio Olympic Park will hold venues for 14 sports and the Main Press Center and International Broadcast Center. The park will include a training center for Olympic sports that will serve as a legacy from the Games.
Adjacent to the park will be the Olympic Village, a location which Osorio says offer travel times to many venues at the five-minute mark.
Osorio says the 2016 bid has taken a major cue from the IOC report from the 2012 campaign,
proposing what he calls “much more feasible” transportation plans.
Abandoned is a costly and difficult subway expansion. Instead, Osorio says a rapid transit system using buses will provide a direct link from Barra to the Deodoro, cutting in half the present travel time of 50 minutes. A rapid bus transit link will also be established between the other venue clusters at Havelange/Maracana and Copacabana.
Osorio says the federal government has pledged an upgrade to Jobim Airport, the international gateway to Rio de Janeiro, as well as improvements to other major airports, and an overhaul of the nation’s overloaded air traffic control system.
Osorio says the details released Tuesday are all contained in the questionnaire that will be delivered to the IOC by a delegation from Brazil on Jan. 11, three days before it is officially due in Lausanne.
Along with Osorio and Brazilian Olympic Committee President and IOC member Carlos Nuzman, state of Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral and representatives from city government will make the trip to Lausanne.
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