News The stopwatch was started: “365 dias, 8,760 hours, 525,000 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds until the start of our Olympic Games,” announced the master of ceremonies, Mario Andrada, on the evening of 5 August, at Cidade das Artes in Barra da Tijuca The symbolic act followed a powerful speech by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) “This will be the biggest urban redevelopment project since the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games transformed that city,” he said “The world will talk about a Rio de Janeiro before the Games and a much better Rio de Janeiro after the Games ”Representatives of Greece, Russia, the Republic of Korea, Japan, China and Brazil received official invites to the Games Bach, who arrived in Rio on Tuesday when he played beach football in Barra, officially invited the world’s athletes to take part in the first Olympic Games to be staged in South America He then symbolically handed invitations to the representatives of the National Olympic Committees of Greece, Russia, the Republic of Korea, Japan, China, and Brazil – the country where the Olympic Games originated, the country of the previous host city, and the countries of the next Games host cities In the audience were Olympic athletes from various generations On the stage was Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, along with Minister of Sport George Hilton, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, and Nawal El Moutawakel, Chair of the IOC Coordiantion Commission for Rio 2016, and Carlos Nuzman, the Rio 2016 President Even Rio 2016 Olympic mascot  Vinicius wore a suit for the one-year-to-go ceremony (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)  The event was official, but Brazilian creativity ensured procedings were lively (see photo gallery below) “Instead of a stopwatch that counts backwards, we decided on one that goes forwards,” said Carla Camurati, director of the Rio 2016 culture programme Singers Diogo Nogueira and Roberta Sá opened the concert called Sons do Rio (Sounds of Rio), while the big screen showed images from old Rio “At this party, people began to feel what the Olympics in Brazil will be like,” said Nogueira (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)