“I am glad because 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