Rio Olympics 2016: 31st Games Set for Opening Ceremony

Rio de Janeiro, 02 Dzulqa’dah 1437/05 August 2016  (MINA) – The 31st Olympic Games officially start in Rio on Friday with the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium, BBC Sports reported.

Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team are in Brazil to compete in 31 sports and be watched by a global audience of billions.

The build-up has been dominated by a Russian doping scandal, the Zika virus and issues with the city’s security, infrastructure and venues.

But it is time for the sporting action to take centre stage as the first Olympics in South America begin.

An estimated three billion people will watch the ceremony, which has taken five years to produce and includes 300 dancers, 5,000 volunteers and 12,000 costumes.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Briton Dame Judi Dench are confirmed to have roles in the production before the 207 competing nations take part in the Parade of Nations.

There will be 10,500 athletes from a record 207 nations competing in Rio, including the Refugee Olympic Team, while it will be the first time Kosovo and South Sudan have taken part in the Games.

The Refugee Olympic Team will compete under the Olympic flag and has 10 members – five from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia.

With 554 athletes, the United States has the largest Olympic team, but spare a thought for 100m runner Etimoni Timuani, who is the only athlete from the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu.

The Rio Games will be the first to feature Olympians born since the year 2000 – and the youngest is 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh.

What abiut Russia?

It seemed at one stage that no Russian athletes would be at the Games after Wada recommended a blanket ban.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said individual sporting federations must rule on whether Russians can compete.

Their decisions were then ratified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) before a three-man IOC panel made the final decision.

On Thursday, the IOC cleared 271 Russian athletes to compete in Rio of the country’s original entry list of 389, though the country’s track and field athletes have been barred by athletics’ governing body. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)