To host the 2007 Pan American Games, the City of Sports Complex, administered by Rio de Janeiro City Hall and an arena of important international motor sport races such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix, CART IndyCar Racing and Motorcycle Speed Races, was turned into a mega sports complex with the capacity to stage several sport disciplines.
The site now counts on modern constructions such as the Rio Olympic Arena, where the Games' Basketball and Artistic Gymnastics competitions was held; the Maria Lenk National Aquatic Center, venue for the Swimming, Synchronized Swimming and Diving competitions; and the Barra Velodrome, where the Cycling (track) and Speed Skating events took place.
The Complex also played an important role in the Parapan American Games Rio 2007; the Rio Olympic Arena was the place of the Opening and Closing ceremonies and also the arena for Wheelchair Basketball, and the Maria Lenk Aquatic Park held the Swimming competitions.
Since Rio de Janeiro won the bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the City of Sports Complex will receive a bigger extension. The existing Arena, Aquatic Centre, and Velodrome will be used for the Games. Several new venues will also be built for the Games, including a bigger Aquatics Stadium, the Olympic Training Center, with four pavilions, a Small Field Hockey Arena, and a new Tennis Centre. The Riocentro who's close from the Olympic Park will also be part of the Barra Cluster. And the Olympic Village will be constructed near this sports complex.
Famous quotes containing the words city of, city, sports and/or complex:
“There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear—the city of London and the South Seas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers’ hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“Uneducated people are unfortunate in that they do grasp complex issues, educated people, on the other hand, often do not understand simplicity, which is a far greater misfortune.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)