News The Rio de Janeiro city government today (29 July) outlined the legacy that will be left by the two main venue clusters of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games After hosting the biggest sports event on the planet, Barra Olympic Park and Deodoro Olympic Park will provide facilities for education, social projects, public leisure and elite-level sports  “Since the start, when Rio de Janeiro won the right to host the Games, our plan was to invest in the legacy that would be left to the city,” said Pedro Paulo Teixeira, secretary of staff at City Hall “The construction projects are simple and efficient, nothing too far-fetched Our focus is on the Games, but we are also thinking about the future ”Barra Olympic ParkOf the nine competition venues in Barra Olympic Park, seven will remain in place after the Games, while two will be taken down and have their parts reused for new projects, thanks to the concept of ‘nomadic architecture’ The materials used to create the Future Arena, which will host handball during the Olympic Games and goalball during the Paralympic Games, will be used to construct four public schools, each with a capacity of 500 students The Olympic Aquatics Stadium will be dismounted and its parts used to construct two aquatics centres, both of which will have 50m Olympic swimming pools – one with a grandstand of 6,000 seats, the other with seating for 3,000 spectators Carioca Arena 3, which during the Games will host fencing, taekwondo and Paralympic judo, will remain intact but become an Olympic Experimental School (GEO in Portuguese) with space for 850 full-time students after the Games The city government has already initiated three of these special institutions in other parts of Rio They combine academic teaching with top-level sports training The other six venues will form the Olympic Training Centre, which will provide top-level facilities for a host of sports, including tennis, wrestling, weightlifting, badminton, fencing, taekwondo, judo and athletics, as well as being available for the GEO students and social projects An Olympic-standard athletics track and two beach volleyball courts will be added to the park, as well as a dormitory for high-performance and amateur athletes, which will have 166 twin bedrooms and be built – again using nomadic architecture – from materials used in the construction of the International Broadcast Centre, which will be a fixture of the park during the Games With top-level venues such as the Olympic Tennis Centre, velodrome and Carioca Arena 1, the park will also allow Rio to host major international sports events , concerts and exhibitions  The Olympic Tennis Centre will allow Rio to stage top-level tournaments in the future (Photo: Municipal Olympic Company) Deodoro Olympic ParkAs well continuing to offer facilities for high-performance sport, Deodoro will become home to Rio’s second largest public leisure area, the X-Park, which will serve about 1 5 million people in a region with a high concentration of youngsters lacking recreational areas The canoe slalom venue will become a large recreational lake, while the Olympic BMX track will be maintained Multi-sports courts, a mini mountain bike track, a beginners BMX track, nature trails, bike paths, a skating rink, outdoor fitness equipment, gardens and barbecue areas will be installed The existing venues – the shooting and equestrian centres and the aquatics centre that will be used for modern pentathlon – will remain under the responsibility of the Brazilian Army, as well as the new Youth Arena and Olympic Hockey Centre These facilities will continue to welcome high-performance Brazilian teams and host national and international competitions “We always wanted the Games to encourage the practice of sport in Brazil,” said Marcus Vinicius Freire, executive director of sport at the Brazilian Olympic Committee “The social aspect will combine with the high-performance part This legacy plan is a present for us ”The canoe slalom venue will become a large recreational lake after the Games (Photo: Municipal Olympic Company)