(Photo: Google Images)
Reporting for the Rio Times, Chesney Hearst reports officials have unveiled the Olympic rings structure in Madureira Park located in the Zona Norte (North Zone) neighborhood of Madureira in Rio de Janeiro. The park will be one of three future sites where the public will be able to view, on a large screen, live streams of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.
The rings were displayed on the Tyne Bridge in the city of Newcastle during the London Games and were donated to Rio. Hearst writes:
“’The Olympic Games are for all Cariocas [Rio residents],’ Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, who was in attendance during the unveiling ceremony, said. ‘It is important that all of them feel that they are a fundamental part of this movement which is transforming Rio de Janeiro. Madureira is the heart of Rio’s suburbs, where our identity was forged. It is in the poorest regions of the city that the Games will have the most impact.’
Weighing almost four tons, stretching 25m across, and standing 12m high, the iconic five-ring structure was donated to the city by the United Kingdom following its 2012 Olympic Games held in London. During the Games, the structure adorned the Tyne Bridge in the city of Newcastle, becoming a tourist attraction.
The rings arrived in Rio de Janeiro after a twenty-day voyage across the ocean during January and February earlier this year. They remained covered in Madureira Park (Parque de Madureira) until Wednesday’s official unveiling.
Featuring a fireworks display and a crowd of celebratory spectators, the unveiling ceremony was also attended, in addition to Paes, by the President of the International Olympic Committee’s Coordination Commission for the 2016 Games, Nawal el Moutawakel; UK Consul General, Jonathan Dunn; and the President of the Organizing Committee of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Carlos Arthur Nuzman.”
Read more at Rio Times.
This post was written by Reginald Calhoun, editorial assistant for The Burton Wire. He is a junior Mass Media Arts major at Clark Atlanta University. Follow him on Twitter @IRMarsean.
