The 2016 Olympic Games will get rolling in Rio tonight with a colourful opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium.
Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team will be watched by billions of TV viewers as they compete in 28 sports.
As a typical prelude to every Olympics in recent years, there was big media cynicism in the build-up to Rio, regarding Russian doping scandal, Zika virus and issues bordering on Rio’s security, infrastructure etc.
However, start of sporting action will once again push away those concerns to where they belong to.
It is the 28th version of the Olympiad and the first time it will be held in South America.
Though action started two days ago with women football but the Games, expected to end on 21 August, will officially starts at 1.00 CET with an extravagant opening ceremony Friday night
About three billion people will watch the opening show, which took five years to create and rehearse, with 300 dancers, 5,000 volunteers and 12,000 costumes.
Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Briton Dame Judi Dench will play take part in the opening show before the 207 competing teams take part in the Parade of Nations.
10,500 athletes from a record 207 teams will be competing in Rio, including the Refugee Olympic Team, making it the first time Kosovo and South Sudan have taken part in the Games.
The Refugee team, with 10 members – five from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia, will compete under the Olympic flag.
United States, with 554 athletes, has the largest Olympic contingent, while 100m sprinter Etimoni Timuani is the only athlete from the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu.
The Rio Games will mark the first time Olympians born since the year 2000 will feature. The youngest is 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh.
Russia, enmeshed in a doping scandal, got a last minute reprieve on Thursday, when the IOC cleared 271 Russian athletes from an original entry list of 389, to participate. However, 67 of its 68 track and field athletes have been excluded by the sport’s governing body. Altogether 118 Russian athletes were banned from the Games.
Three-time World Cup champion Pele says he was invited to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, but as at going to press, it was unclear if his conflicting sponsorship deal travel assignment would stop him from performing the prestigious task. He said he hoped to resolve the conflcit.
“I need to solve the travel issue. It is an international commitment with an English company. But I would love to (light the cauldron),” Pele said. “If I manage to change (the travel plans), I would like to have the honor to light it,” 75 year-old Pele said at an event in Rio.
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