Rio Olympics 2016:
Games set for opening ceremony

The 2016 Olympic Games officially start in Rio on Friday with the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium. Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team are in Brazil to compete in 28 sports and be watched by a global audience of billions. The build-up has been dominated by a Russian doping scandal, the Zika virus and issues with the city's security, infrastructure and venues. But it is time for the sporting action to take centre stage. These are the Games of the 31st Olympiad but are the 28th to be held as those in 1916, 1940 and 1944 did not take place because of war.

The Games - held in South America for the first time - officially take place between 5 and 21 August, but they have actually already started. The opening ceremony is at midnight BST on Friday night but the action kicked off two days ago with the women's football.

Defending Olympic men's tennis champion Andy Murray will be Great Britain's flag bearer inside Rio's Maracana stadium on Friday. An estimated three billion people will watch the ceremony which has taken five years to produce and includes 300 dancers, 5,000 volunteers and 12,000 costumes. Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Briton Dame Judi Dench are confirmed to have roles in theproduction before the 207 competing teams take part in the Parade of Nations.

There will be 10,500 athletes from a record 207 teams competing in Rio, including the Refugee Olympic Team, while it will be the first time Kosovo and South Sudan have taken part in the Games. The Refugee Olympic Team will compete under the Olympic flag and has 10 members - five from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia. With 554 athletes, the United States has the largest Olympic team, but 100m runner Etimoni Timuani is the only athlete from the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu. The Rio Games will be the first to feature Olympians born since the year 2000 - and the youngest is 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh.

Brazil is in a deep recession and political crisis, while protests marred the arrival of the Olympic torch in Rio on Wednesday. A New Zealand jiu-jitsu athlete claims he was kidnapped in Rio, while Chinese state media criticised security after women fencers were robbed and shooting team members found "unauthorised payments" on their credit cards. Brazil has drafted in 85,000 security personnel from 55 countries who will be stationed at the sport venues, Olympic Village, airports and main roads - almost twice as many as were at the 2012 London Olympics. There is also 200km of security fencing being used. More than 500,000 tourists are expected to come to the Games and organisers say more than one million of the 7.5 million tickets remain unsold. There have also been issues with the Olympic Village and the sailing venue. Australia initially refused to move into the village in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood, citing electrical problems, gas and water leaks among other issues in their building. When they did eventually move in, the team were evacuated for a small fire and returned to their rooms to find essential equipment had been stolen. At the sailing venue in Guanabara Bay, a taskforce removed 25.4 tonnes of floating rubbish during last year's Olympic test event. But Rio officials admit they have failed to keep up promises to clean the water and the Associated Press says swallowing just three teaspoons of water from the bay is likely to lead to illness. This is not the first time a host city has been criticised for its preparations, but the IOC says Rio is now "ready to welcome the world".

http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/369743

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