Rio de Janeiro’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games was presented on Saturday during the second Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth and Sport, hosted in Lisbon by the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, or CPLP). The presentation was given by Ricardo Leyser, Secretary for Elite Sport of Brazil’s Ministry of Sport.

Leyser detailed the main features of Rio 2016, showed a campaign video that the Brazilian government has been airing on national television to support the bid and described the benefits that Brazil can gain from hosting the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Noting that Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Portugal for 12 years – during the exile of the Portuguese crown, which fled from the Napoleonic Wars – Leyser also commented that no Portuguese language country has ever held the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. “This is an historic opportunity that the International Olympic Committee has to bring the Games to a community of approximately 240 million people living in various continents.”

Leyser also pointed out that Brazil, as well as being the largest Portuguese language country in the world, is the biggest South American nation, and as a result “is representing a population of almost 400 million South Americans who have also never had the honor of hosting the Olympic Games.”

About CPLP

The CPLP is a multilateral forum for mutual friendship between the lusophone nations across the world where Portuguese is an official language. Founded in 1996, and based in Lisbon, the CPLP is composed of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor.

Since 2008, when Rio de Janeiro hosted the first Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth and Sport, Angola has held the presidency of the Conference, and Brazil the vice-presidency, in accordance with a two-year rotational system adopted between the countries. At the Rio conference, East Timor signed an accord with the CPLP on sport and youth.

Among participants of the conference in Lisbon were Portugal’s Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, Laurentino José Monteiro de Castro Dias, representatives of the Youth and Sport ministries of Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe’s Minister for Social Communications, Youth and Sport, and East Timor’s Secretary of State for Youth and Sport.

Topics of discussion included national policies on youth and sport, multilateral cooperation among the countries, and preparations for the seventh edition of the CPLP Games, to be hosted in 2010 by Mozambique. The last Games, in July 2008, were held in Rio de Janeiro, with the participation of 600 young athletes from the eight countries.

Alongside the Lisbon conference, there was a youth fair and exhibition of creative youth talent from the CPLP.