Brazil beat Peru 3-1 in Rio de Janiero’s Maracanã Stadium on Sunday 7 July to win its 9th Copa America. The victory also maintained Brazil’s record of winning the Copa America every time they have hosted it. Five times in total.
Brazil dominated the tournament, but it was the team’s first tournament win since picking up the Olympic gold medal in the Maracanã in 2106, and previously winning the Confederations Cup, also in the Maracanã, in 2013. It is a first Copa America title in 12 years.
Brazil has won the Copa America Femenina and in the process has qualified for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France in 2019 (for the 8th consecutive time) and the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament in Tokyo in 2020. Brazil played seven games in the Copa America , won seven, scoring 31 goals and conceding just two.
Chile has taken the second spot for the World Cup, but will have a play off with an African nation for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics.
If you can’t get to Rio for the Olympics and are stuck back in London, you can still soak up the atmosphere of the games and Brazil at the Rio Olympic Lounge that is located in the Brazilian Embassy, just off Trafalgar Square (14-16 Cockspur Street. SW1Y 5BL).
Entry is free and the lounge is open Monday to Saturday from 10.00 and 19.00 from 6 to 21 August.
The Lounge showcases what lies beyond the city of Rio, and shows the state of Rio’s many other attractions. Basically where the residents of Rio – the Cariocas – head out to to have even more fun (if that is possible) at the weekends. Some even live there and go to Rio for the weekends!
If you are in Rio for the Olympics, you can get more information of what the city and state of Rio has to offer from the Visit Rio and TurisRio stands in Espaço Rio de Janeiro located at the Olympic Boulevard, at Orla Mayor Luiz Paulo Conde in the port area.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and South America has a major new attraction with the opening of the Museum of Tomorrow (Museu do Amanhã). It is one the most exciting new museums and attractions to open in Rio in time for the 2016 Olympics
Designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the Museum of Tomorrow is one of the anchors of the newly developed Porto Maravilha cultural area that also houses the Museum of Rio Art. Dedicated to the sciences, the facility, which opened in December 2015, has a format unlike any other museum of natural history or of science and technology.
The Museum of Tomorrow offers visitors the opportunity to engage in personal-choice experiences, have a glimpse of future possibilities and envision how they will live and shape the planet in the next fifty years. The space explores variations on tomorrows in the fields of matter, life and thought and debates questions like climate change, population growth and longevity, global integration, the world’s increased diversity of material goods and its decreased natural diversity. It is a museum where people can follow the trails of their imagination and make their own choices about the future more conscientiously and ethically.
Movement, innovation and Brazilian flavour is the inspiration behind the design of the Rio 2016 Olympic torch, which was unveiled on 3 July 2015. Its design aims to reflect the meeting of the Olympic flame with the human warmth of the Brazilian people.
The torch relay convoy is expected to visit 500 Brazilian cities and towns – about 300 of which will host the relay itself while a further 200 will cheer the convoy as it passes by with the flame on display. They include the capitals of all 26 Brazilian states and Brasília. The route has been designed to reach the highest number of people as possible, and Rio 2016 estimates that the torch relay will reach 90 per cent of the Brazilian population.
The journey will begin in May 2016 and will last between 90 and 100 days. There will be about 12,000 torchbearers, each one carrying their torch about 200 meters, then passing the flame – which will have been lit in Greece – on to the next. The torch will travel 20,000 km by road and another 10,000 miles by air over the North and Midwest parts of the country, between the cities of Teresina and Campo Grande, without the flame ever going out.
The torch’s texture has triangles running the length of its body, alluding to the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect, and the floating effect of its different segments refers to the efforts of the athletes. One of its main innovations is the movement of these segments, which open up and expand vertically when the Olympic flame is passed from one torchbearer to another. This is known as “the kiss of the torches”.
Upon expanding, the segments reveal the elements that add the Brazilian flavour – diversity, energy and nature – represented by the sea, mountains, sky and sun, and the colours of the Brazilian flag.
Crafted from recycled aluminium and resin with a satin finish, the torch weighs between 1kg and 1.5kg and stands 63.5cm high when closed and 69cm when opened.
The torch relay will start in Brasília and has a definite finish date: 5 August 2016, the day of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games opening ceremony at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio.
The 83 cities that will be the final destination of the Olympic flame at the end of each day are:
1 – Brasília
2 – Anápolis
3 – Goiânia
4 – Caldas Novas
5 – Uberlândia
6 – Patos de Minas
7 – Montes Claros
8 – Curvelo
9 – Governador Valadares
10 – Itabira
11 – Belo Horizonte
12 – Juiz de Fora
13 – Cachoeiro de Itapemirim
14 – Vitória
15 – São Mateus
16 – Porto Seguro
17 – Vitória da Conquista
18 – Ilhéus
19 – Valença
20 – Salvador
21 – Senhor do Bonfim
22 – Petrolina
23 – Paulo Afonso
24 – Aracaju
25 – Maceió
26 – Caruaru
27 – Recife
28 – Campina Grande
29 – João Pessoa
30 – Natal
31 – Mossoró
32 – Fortaleza
33 – Sobral
34 – Parnaíba
35 – Teresina
36 – Imperatriz
37 – Palmas
38 – São Luís
39 – Belém
40 – Macapá
41 – Santarém
42 – Boa Vista
43 – Manaus
44 – Rio Branco
45 – Porto Velho
46 – Cuiabá
47 – Campo Grande
48 – Dourados
49 – Presidente Prudente
50 – Londrina
51 – Cascavel
52 – Foz do Iguaçu
53 – Pato Branco
54 – Passo Fundo
55 – Santa Maria
56 – Pelotas
57 – Porto Alegre
58 – Caxias do Sul
59 – Criciúma
60 – Florianopólis
61 – Blumenau
62 – Joinville
63 – Curitiba
64 – Ponta Grossa
65 – Itapetininga
66 – Bauru
67 – Ribeirão Preto
68 – Franca
69 – Campinas
70 – Osasco
71 – São Bernado
72 – São Paulo
73 – Santos
74 – São José dos Campos
75 – Angra dos Reis
76 – Volta Redonda
77 – Petrópolis
78 – Nova Friburgo
79 – Macaé
80 – Cabo Frio
81 – Niterói
82 – Nova Iguaçu
83 – Rio de Janeiro
Rio 2016 has opened a gift shop at Terminal 1 of Rio’s International Airport. Open from 6 am until 11 pm the shop sells various Olympic and Paralympic-related merchandise, such as clothes, hats, and beach towels as well as soft-toy versions of the Rio 2016 mascots, Vinicius and Tom.
The Rio Airport shop is the first of a series that will be open at airports: Rio’s Santos Dumont will have a shop soon, as will the airports in São Paulo. Apart from the airport’s new store, there are a number of sites around Rio where official products are already on sale, such as the Tijuca campus of the Estácio de Sá University and the city centre.
You can also access the Rio 2016 Brazilian online store, which has an exclusive range of toys. Prices vary from from caps costing R$49 (US$15) to 45cm soft toys at R$139,90 (US$45).
By 2016, an expected 12,000 products will be available, with the expectation that these items will generate around R$1billion in Brazilian retail sales.
Olympic merchandise will eventually be available at 150 official Rio 2016 stores and at more than 40,000 sales points across Brazil.
Brazilian residents have applied for 5.2 million tickets for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games during the first sales phase, which closed on 6 May. In a reflection of the local sporting culture, the most sought-after tickets were for volleyball, followed by football and basketball. In total, about 7.5 million tickets for the games will be put on sale.
For events that have more requests than available tickets, there will be a ticket ballot. The results of the draw will be announced in June, with a second sales phase starting in July. However, only Brazilian residents who entered the first phase will be able to participate in the second phase, with those who were unsuccessful first time around having priority in the second draw. The results of the second phase will be known in August. For Brazilian residents who did not enter the first two phases, there will be a first-come-first-served online sales phase in October.
Non-residents of Brazil who want to buy tickets for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games should enter into contact with the authorised ticket reseller (ATR) for their territory, that are featured on the Olympic section of thie Rio: The Guide site. Click Here
A video of how the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro looked in January 2015 and how it will look when the games open in August 2016.
The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has released the athletics’ timetable for the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 and it features finals during the morning sessions of the athletics programme.
“Staging finals in the morning was done at the request of the Rio 2016 Organising Committee and the Olympic Broadcasting Service, supported by the International Olympic Committee,” said IAAF competitions director Paul Hardy. “Having finals in the morning will also ensure that we receive maximum visibility for athletics at the Olympic Games across all time zones.”
There is at least one final in all of the morning sessions. All five road events – the two marathons and the three race walk events – will be held in the morning sessions, although both 20km race walks will be in the early afternoon. Other morning finals include the women’s 10,000m, men’s and women’s 3000m steeplechase, men’s 400m hurdles, men’s triple jump, men’s and women’s discus, and the women’s hammer.
For the full calendar – as of 15 December 2014 – click on the photo below, then click again to enlarge the size of the image…
The Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots have been named. The Olympic mascot will be called Vinicius and the Paralympic mascot will be called Tom. The names were chosen by a public vote with 323, 327 votes cast.
The names, which received 44 per cent of valid votes, pay tribute to the great Brazilian musicians and composers Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim. The duo were a key part of the group that created Bossa Nova. Together, Vinicius and Tom wrote The Girl from Ipanema, one of the most-played songs of all time, and many other bossa nova classics..
Vinicius and Tom were chosen ahead of the other two shortlisted pairs of names: Oba and Eba, and Tiba Tuque and Esquindim.
Rio 2016 President Carlos Nuzman said the public had chosen names that reflect the character of the Rio 2016 Games. “The names of Vinicius and Tom are recognised worldwide as a synonym for excellence, which is in line with what we want to achieve with the Rio 2016 Games,” he said. “In addition to representing the Brazilian fauna and flora, our mascots also connect to the best of our music. We are certain that they will be an inspiration to the youth.”
The origin of the Rio 2016 mascots blends fiction and reality. According to the “legend”, on 2 October 2009, when Rio de Janeiro was elected to host the Games, the great explosion of joy amongst Brazilians was felt by nature and from this energy the mascots were born.
Vinicius, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games mascot, represents all of the different animals in Brazil. He combines the agility of cats, the sway of monkeys and the grace of birds. He can stretch his arms and legs as much as he wants and has a very acute sense of smell and amazing powers of hearing.
Tom, the Paralympic mascot, is a fusion of plants found in Brazilian forests. He is energised by photosynthesis and can pull any object from his head of leaves. He is always growing and overcoming obstacles, and believes there is no challenge that cannot be solved.
Brazil the Guide 