New-look Olympic Stadium to host Rio 2016 athletics test event
Freshly laid running track to be used for first time during Ibero-American Athletics Championships
The Olympic Stadium in Rio will be the sporting centre of the world later this year (Photo: Getty Images/Buda Mendes)
The world of track and field will this week get its first look at the brand-new running track in the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Some 400 athletes will compete in a regional championship and make sure that the stadium is ready for action when the curtain goes up on the greatest show on earth in August.
It is here at the Olympic Stadium that the blue riband athletics events of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place. This is the venue where Jamaica's Usain Bolt will attempt to defend the 100m, 200m and 4x100m titles he won at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Games – in what would be an unprecedented ‘triple-triple’.
From Saturday (14 May) to Monday, the stadium – which was built for the 2007 Pan American Games – will be the venue for the traditional Ibero-American Athletics Championships. This year, the competition will serve as a test event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Athletes from Latin America, Spain, Portugal and beyond will be the first to compete on the new royal blue Olympic track. Italian company Mondo has used nanotechnology techniques to design the track with Rio's hot and humid conditions in mind. The company has a long history in laying tracks for top-tier competitions, including for the London 2012 Olympic Games and last year's world athletics championships in Beijing.
Brazilian pole vaulter Fabiana Murer will be among athletes competing in the test event (Photo: Getty Images/Michael Steele)
In Rio, elite athletes participating in the test event include Dominican runner Luguelín Santos, who won silver in the 400m at London 2012 at the age of just 18. Brazilian Fabiana Murer, gold medallist in the pole vault at the 2011 world championships, will be carrying local hopes.
Other medal contenders include Uruguayan hurdler Andrés Silva, Colombian runner Rafith Rodriguez and Portguese shotputter Marco Fortes. For the first time, athletes from outside the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world will participates; competitors from the USA, Australia, Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia have been invited to compete.
For each session, 3,500 free tickets will be distributed. The competition will test organisers' ability to manage large crowds safely and efficiently while at the same time running a major sporting event.
A test event for Paralympic athletics will then be held at the Olympic Stadium next week (18-21 May).
