Seven members of the Organising Committee for the Rio 2016™ Olympic and Paralympic Games will follow the 15th edition of the FINA World Aquatics championships that will start this Friday, the 19th, in Barcelona, Spain. Professionals from the Sport, Venues and Press Operations Functional Areas will participate in various activities in order to have full knowledge of the event and bring to the organisers of the Rio 2016™ Games information, trends and ideas that may be used in the competition.

Walter Russo, Sport Group Manager responsible for Aquatics, Ricardo de Moura, Sport Manager responsible for Aquatics, Roberta Perillier, Sport Manager responsible for Synchronised Swimming, Christiane Fanzeres, Sport Manager responsible for the Swimming marathon, Bob Martin, Press Services Consultant, Fábio Corrêa, Main Press Centre Manager and Ângela Ferreira, Design Zone Manager form the team.

The Barcelona World Championships gather all aquatic sports – Swimming, Synchronised Swimming, Diving and Water Polo – and will rock the city that hosted the 1992 Olympic Games until 4 August.

“We will have meetings with the local committee as well as with technical committees for each discipline. It’s worth noticing that the World Championships include many Olympic and non-Olympic events so they are bigger than the Olympic Games. In Swimming, for instance, around 950 athletes are expected in Rio 2016™ while in Barcelona there will be 1,300. We’ll follow the pre-competition period, the operational logistics structure and all the details of the event”, Walter Russo said. He is already in Barcelona and on 5 August he will travel with Ricardo de Moura to Montreal, Canada, where they will follow the IPC Swimming World Championships.

Ângela Ferreira will visit competition and training venues to get to know the entire event’s infrastructure. “We will focus in understanding sports operations along with its variables. That means studying all the areas that the athletes need as well as the technology and logistics among other details”, she said.

Fábio Corrêa will observe press operations and the way media professional cover the event. “We’ll strengthen the channel of dialogue that we have with the federation (FINA) and news agencies. We will check trends and innovations related to the event’s coverage, the organisation’s failures and successes in order to understand what we will be able to use here in Rio 2016™. I’ll also meet Bob Martin, our Press Services Consultant”, he explained.

British Bob Martin is a genius of sports photography. He won various international awards and is the only Sports Illustrated photographer based outside the USA. He has been working for the US-based magazine for over 20 years. His mission in Rio 2016™ is to study the best angles and to place around 1,400 image professionals in the competition sites.

British Tracey Miles seems to fly over the city of Barcelona in a photo that marked an era (Photo: Bob Martin)

“He is our golden boy. In the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games he had the idea of placing a ladder in a way that allowed him to take the picture that marked the competition, in the diving pool with the Sagrada Familia (one of Barcelona’s most famous landmarks, designed by modernist architect Antoni Gaudí) in the back ground”, Fábio said.

The Barcelona World Championships opening ceremony will take place this Friday. On Saturday, at 08h00 (Brasilia official time), the Swimming marathon (men’s and women’s 5km event) as well as Synchronised Swimming and Diving events start. Water Polo starts on Sunday and Swimming only on 28 July. This championships’ greatest innovation is high diving. The divers jump from incredible heights: 27 metres for men and 18 metres for women.