Rio 2016: Five things you need to know about the Rio Olympics as the Games come to South America for the first time
We look at golf, athletes born after the year 2000 and what footballing record you wouldn't expect Rio to hold
RIO 2016 is just days away and the excitement is hotting up ahead of two weeks of high quality sport.
Team GB have made their way to Rio and are making their final preparations before the competition starts following the opening ceremony on Friday night.
Ahead of the Games, we’ve put together a list of five things worth knowing about this summer’s sporting extravaganza.
It’s the first South American games
BIT hot in here, isn’t it?
Brazil are proud to be hosting the first ever Olympics to be held in South America.
They beat Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid way back in 2009 to host these Games and have been working towards this fortnight ever since.
The action will be divided between four different zones – Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro, and Maracana – each containing different competition venues.
Golf is back after 112 year absence
THE WORLD’S very best may have pulled out due to Zika worries, but there is a lot of excitement at the return of golf as an Olympic event after so long.
The Brazilian’s have built a brand-new 18-hole course for the Games at the Reserva de Marapendi nature reserve, near Rio.
Featuring a competition for both men and women with the men’s competition is scheduled for 11–14 August and the women’s for 17–20 August.
First Olympics to feature competitors born after 2000
FEELING old now?
Look out for table-tennis whiz Kanak Jha and gymnast Laurie Hernandez – both 16 and born in 2000.
The Games has a very youthful feel to it this time, with a number of teenage competitors vying for medals in the track & field.
For Team USA, 16-year-old Sydney McLaughlin will be their youngest member since 1972.
33 tonnes of dead fish had to be removed from waterways in preparation
THAT’S an outrageous amount of fish.
Over 60 local fishermen worked tirelessly to clear the waters in the rowing and canoeing venue Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas.
The overwhelming smell at the lagoon has led to complaints from residents and members of local rowing clubs.
Rio’s waterways has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks – after a CORPSE was spotted floating around just last week.
Rio hold’s record for largest-ever football attendance
AT the World Cup final in 1950, an incredible 199,854 piled into the Maracana to watch hosts Brazil play Uruguay.
The incredible spectacle is still the best attended game of all time, although the hosts had to suffer the heartache of a 2-1 defeat.
Sadly we won’t see crowds quite on that scale this summer – as the current capacity of the ground is a measly 78,838.