POSTED: Thursday December 30th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A record-time beginning of the construction works for the Rio 2016 Olympic Village pleases IOC President

Jacques Rogge pleased to see fast preparation for Rio 2016 Olympic Games

“I am glad for I see the preparation for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is
going extremely well”, said the International Olympic Committee
President (IOC), Jacques Rogge, in the laying of the cornerstone of
the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Village, in the morning of this
Wednesday 29th, highlighting that the Village is the “heart of the
Olympic experience, a sacred place”.

The ceremony also had the presence of a number of authorities as State
Governor Sérgio Cabral, and his Vice-Governor Fernando Pezão; Mayor
Eduardo Paes; Senator Regis Fichtner; IOC senior member João
Havelange; IOC Coordination Commission President Nawal El Moutawakel;
businessman Carlos Fernando Carvalho, from Carvalho Hosken
construction company; and Rio 2016 Committee Carlos Arthur Nuzman.
Olympic athletes were also present, including beach volleyball Olympic
medalist Sandra Pires.

Located in the Western Zone of the city, next to Riocentro, which is
one of the Games competing venues, the Village will provide the
athletes the chance of experiencing the carioca lifestyle. During the
event, 46% of the athletes will be staying 10 minutes from the
competition and training venues and 73% only 25 minutes away.
Seventy-five hectares, being 58 used for accommodation area, with 48
twelve-storey buildings and 2,800 more apartments to house the 17,700
athletes. The apartments, of three and four bedrooms, will house eight
athletes each. The parking lots will have the capacity for 1,000 cars.

At the entrance of the complex, the Olympic Plaza will exhibit the
traditional 205 participating country flags and will provide
commercial centers and other services. The Carioca Street, about 700
meters long, will reproduce the sidewalks and kiosks of the Rio
beaches, world famous, and will also have cafés, restaurants, juice
and ice-cream stores.
The project also includes a training center, a park and, nearby, the
Olympic Village Beach.

The Village will also have a pool, movie theater, spa, gym and
business center, among other options of leisure such as the Barra da
Tijuca condos, a neighborhood famous for offering housing complexes of
excellent infrastructure. Reproducing a common practice in former
Olympic and Paralympic Games Villages, the apartments will be sold
after the event.

Follows what some of the authorities present stated:

“We will kick start the beginning of the constructions of the Rio 2016
Village in record time. We will have an extraordinary Village; it will
be the best and most beautiful in the history of the Olympic and
Paralympic Games”.
Carlos Arthur Nuzman

“This is a public-private consistent partnership, a harmonious project
between nature and sports. And we will have a Village that the
Paralympic athletes will enjoy with dignity. This project will serve
as an accessibility model for Brazilian architecture”.
Sergio Cabral

“Rio de Janeiro is going through a very special moment and it is not a
coincidence that it goes so well. There is a huge effort to make the
transformations in the city. We will meet the deadlines and deliver
the works before scheduled time to evaluate with comfort the problems
that might come up”.
Eduardo Paes

“I would like to thank the support the sports world receives from the
Brazilian public authorities, the three levels of governments -
Federal, State and City ones. That is what we need”.
Jacques Rogge

“Surely the thirty-first Olympic Village of history will be a modern
project, a landmark in the accomplishment of an urban dream.  In a
scenery of 18 kilometers of a tropical beach and lagoons of Barra da
Tijuca, we will have a great meeting place for athletes from all over
the world”.
Carlos Fernando Carvalho

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Keywords · Brazil · Rio 2016 · Olympic and Paralympic Games · Jacques Rogge · Carlos Arthur Nuzman

Name: Bernardo Domingues
Organization: Rio 2016
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Phone: 55 21 3433 5826
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