Olympic Training Center (Rio de Janeiro)


The Olympic Training Center is a sports training facility in Barra da Tijuca, Brazil that opened after the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics. The centre uses six venues used in the 2016 games in addition to a number of new facilities created in the Barra Olympic Park footprint. The centre became a campus of training facilities for Olympic and Paralympic athletes at the site of the former Nelson Piquet International Autodrome - Jacarepaguá as a legacy of the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics.

Purpose

Its main purpose is to centralize the infrastructure required for the development of Brazilian athletes, including teaching and training, with the help of professionals and scientific education. It is inspired and follows similar projects from other countries like the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, Australia, United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and the English Institute of Sport. The first sports to be offered at Brazil's Olympic Training Center will be athletics, boxing, fencing, water sports, gymnastics, wrestling, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, archery, tennis, badminton and weightlifting.
Construction begun in 2009, and was finished in 2016. Funds were planned to come from the Ministry of Sports, from sponsorship contracts and tax incentive laws.

Selection

The Olympic Training Center’s operations will be managed by an agenda elaborated according to the main national and international sports events. Following to this calendar, interns in relevant sports will be invited. During this period, the athletes will undergo a battery of tests and will use the physical and professional structure to support their training. At the end, the athletes and the technical committee will return home to continue the training and disseminate knowledge acquired.

Venues and facilities

The Olympic Training Center encompasses eight permanent sport facilities in the Barra da Tijuca region. Two were part of the City of Sports Complex established for the 2007 Pan American Games: the HSBC Arena and the Maria Lenk Aquatic Center. A third venue, the Barra Velodrome was demolished and replaced by the Rio Olympic Velodrome.
Along with those, two indoor arenas, Carioca Arenas 1 and 2, an Olympic Tennis Center and the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
The Olympic Tennis stadium has a seating capacity of 8,250 spectators, the Olympic Velodrome 5,000 spectators and the Olympic Aquatics Stadium 18,000 spectators. Arena Carioca 1 hosted the Olympic basketball games, and the Paralympic wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby games. Arena Carioca 2 hosted the Olympic judo and wrestling events, and the Paralympic boccia events. Arena Carioca 3 hosted the Olympic taekwondo and fencing competitions and the Paralympic judo and wheelchair fencing tournaments. Future Arena has a capacity of 12,000 spectators and hosted the Olympic handball matches, and the Paralympic goalball matches.
The venues also have infrastructure to provide services in nutrition, physiotherapy & sports medicine, athlete career support, physiological, biomechanical, psychological and biochemical assessment as well as lecture halls & seminar rooms for education of the athletes.