With 17 days until the start of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the world's best athletes are starting to arrive in the host nation.

Sailors are foremost in needing time to learn the currents, tides, winds and waves of their watery field of play. For the past two years, sailors from around the world have plied the waves of Guanabara Bay, training, acclimatising, and getting to know the waters around Rio.

Olympic hopefuls from Germany, Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands are based in Urca, a genteel Rio neighbourhood nestled in the shadow of the Sugarloaf mountain, while competitors from Poland, the USA and Switzerland are testing the waters from training sites on the other side of the bay.

And by the end of this week, a total of 200 athletes from 40 countries will have taken part in the 29th Rio de Janeiro Sailing Week, organised by the city’s yacht club. More information can be found here (in Portuguese).

Next stop: Rio de Janeiro

Athletes in other sports also began their acclimatisation programme early: India’s weightlifting team are already training at the Viçosa Federal University in the state of Minas Gerais. Many more will be arriving this week.

The most popular locations for pre-Games training include Belo Horizonte, Uberlândia and Juiz de Fora, all in Minas Gerais; São Paulo and Santos, both in São Paulo state; and Aracaju, capital of the northeastern state of Sergipe.

Team GB, for example, is sending most of its athletes to the Minas Tênis Club in Belo Horizonte, as well as other sites around the mineiro capital.

Belgium and Ireland will both partake of Uberlândia’s hospitality, meanwhile, as will Estonia’s athletics team. Their counterparts from Canada, Poland, Egypt, Qatar and China are also due to arrive in Juiz de Fora this week.

British taekwondo athletes will be training in Minas Gerais (Getty Images/Clint Hughes)

São Paulo opens its arms to China

The 350-strong Chinese delegation will occupy an entire city block at the Pinheiros Sport Clube from Thursday. Athletes from 15 sports will be hosted at the site, including the badminton squad, who will have the run of the club’s reception hall, while the canoe team will train on the other side of the Pinheiros river at the University of São Paulo’s Raia Olímpica facility.

Santos, a coastal city to the south of São Paulo, is another popular acclimatisation centre, and will host Azerbaijan’s gymnasts, the Slovenian and Italian swimming and triathlon teams, and Tunisian and Uzbek judokas. The Dutch beach volleyball team has opted for nearby Guarujá, with Slovenia’s athletes along the coast in Cubatão. Further inland, the city of Bragança will host Trinidad and Tobago’s competitors.

Road to Rio

Situated between São Paulo and Rio, the city of Volta Redonda will welcome the Mongolian judo, boxing, wrestling and archery teams.

Training venues in Rio de Janeiro include the Cefan and EsEFEx physical education centres, the Naval College, and the famous Flamengo sports club, best known for its football team, which will welcome athletes from several different countries and disciplines.

The Cefan athletics track will play host to athletes from Cuba and Jamaica, as well as the New Zealand women’s football team.

US and Irish boxers will train alongside the host nation’s pugilists at EsEFEz, while Brazilian wrestlers will rub shoulders with their Cuban counterparts at the Tijuca CT. The Kazakh and Venezuelan delegations will make their preparations in Niteroi, meanwhile, and the Azerbaijani contingent has chosen Angra dos Reis as its training base.

Japan has also opted for a beachside training base, albeit further from Rio: the country’s entire gymnastics squad will arrive in Aracuja this week, where they will join swimmers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.