Rio 2016: Shaping urban renewal and social progress in challenging times

The Olympic Games Rio 2016 generated improvements in education, expanded transport infrastructure and led to more sustainable business practices. The sports facilities were either opened to the public for sports and cultural activities, transformed into state schools or disassembled and used in the construction of public parks.

Brazil’s economic upturn in the early 2000s informed the decision to bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, both as a means of enhancing the country’s image and boosting the Rio de Janeiro economy. The key goals behind the candidature were the transformation of the city, social inclusion, and the development of youth, education and sports programmes, not to mention the acceleration of social, mobility and environmental projects. Urban regeneration and the overhaul of the city’s transport network were central planks of legacy planning.

By mid-2014, however, Brazil was immersed in a political and economic crisis, as the progress of the previous 11 years stalled due to a combination of domestic and external factors, plunging the country into one of the deepest recessions in its history. Political unrest, which culminated in a presidential impeachment, provided the backdrop to this.

The staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games reduced the negative effects of the national economic crisis in the host city. A study from the Institute of Applied Economic Research showed that the preparation and delivery of the Games contributed to growing economic activity in Rio. Income among the city’s poorest 5 per cent grew by 29.3 per cent in that time, while 82 per cent of local economic growth was attributable to Games-related job creation. In the three years leading up to the Games, Rio’s GDP per capita would have gone back to 2007 levels and been 7.5 per cent lower without the Games taking place.

A study from Fundação Getulio Vargas revealed several positive social changes in the seven-year period between the awarding of the Games to Rio de Janeiro and their staging in 2016. The survey assessed changes in the quality of life of Rio residents in areas such as education, transport, public services and digital inclusion, using 38 indicators to do so, from sewerage and household refuse collections to years of schooling and per capita household income.

In all, 36 of these indicators saw improvements and only two a deterioration. By 2014, the people of Rio were 147.4 per cent more likely to be connected to the sewerage system than they were in 2008 and 46.2 per cent more likely to have their refuse collected. Furthermore, where the situation had worsened across 10 social indicators in the period from 1970 to 2010, it improved in eight of them between 2008 and 2016, following the awarding of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad to Rio.

The 2016 Games harnessed sport as a catalyst for change in Brazilian education, achieved through programmes such as Transforma, Impulsiona and the Olympic Educational Gymnasiums (OEGs). Benefitting more than eight million students nationwide, Transforma and Impulsiona continue to deliver teaching support to schools, have brought about positive behavioural change among students, and have led to an increase in physical activity and the number of sports played at Brazilian schools, beyond staples such as football, volleyball and basketball.

For their part, Rio de Janeiro’s 12 OEGs provide full-time schooling for thousands of children across the city, allowing them to improve their sporting skills while receiving the best education in the classroom.

In addition, several Rio 2016 competition venues have been converted into state schools that offer an enhanced sports curriculum. It should be recognised, however, that it has taken many years for these legacy projects to come to fruition, a delay that can be attributed to governance issues, influencing sceptical perceptions of the legacy of Rio 2016.

The venue for Olympic taekwondo and fencing and Paralympic judo in 2016, Carioca Arena 3, is now a special sports education institution for 900 students, while Carioca Arena 2, the setting for Olympic judo and wrestling and Paralympic boccia, will open as a branch of the Federal Institute of Technical Education in 2025.

An example of sustainable and innovative design, the 12,000-seat Future Arena, a temporary structure that hosted Olympic handball and Paralympic goalball, has been converted into four schools for nearly 2,000 students in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the west of the city.

Improvements to the city’s public transport system were accelerated by the hosting of the Games. The creation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Light Rail Vehicle (VLT) networks, the construction of Line 4 of the city subway and upgrades to the SuperVia rail network combined to reduce commute times significantly, while the daily number of trips taken on high-capacity transport more than doubled.

Advances have also been made in the development of high-performance sport in Brazil thanks to the 2016 Games. Based at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre – the venue for Olympic artistic swimming, diving and water polo – the Team Brazil Training Centre is used by 200 Brazilian athletes across 12 Olympic disciplines and also hosts training camps for athletes from other national teams.

The centre is home to the Olympic Laboratory, a state-of-the-art sports science facility whose mission is to help Brazil’s athletes raise their performance levels through evaluation and monitoring programmes and to reduce the risk of them suffering injury. Funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, it involves collaboration between the Brazilian Olympic Committee and nine Brazilian research institutions.

Rio 2016 was also notable for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team’s first appearance at the Olympic Games. Competing under the Olympic flag and symbolising hope and inclusiveness for refugees around the world, the 10-athlete team raised public awareness of the challenges refugees face and countered the negativity which often surrounds them. The team comprised two swimmers from Syria, two judokas from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a marathon runner from Ethiopia and five middle-distance runners from South Sudan. The Refugee Olympic Team has grown since then, with 29 athletes from 11 countries representing it at Tokyo 2020 and 37 athletes at Paris 2024.

Following the team’s debut at Rio 2016, Olympic Solidarity (OS) launched the Refugee Athlete Support Programme, which gives National Olympic Committees (NOCs) the chance to identify and support refugee athletes and prepare them for high-level competition. The IOC also set up the Olympic Refuge Foundation, which harnesses the power of sport to aid the protection, development and empowerment of vulnerable children and young people.

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