By Daily Sports on August 5, 2016

The 31st Olympic Games officially start in Rio on Friday with the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium.

Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team are in Brazil to compete in 31 sports and be watched by a global audience of billions.

The build-up has been dominated by a Russian doping scandal, the Zika virus and issues with the city’s security, infrastructure and venues.

But it is time for the sporting action to take centre stage as the first Olympics in South America begin.

The Games officially take place between 5 and 21 August, but they have actually already started.

The opening ceremony is at midnight BST on Friday night but the action kicked off two days ago with the women’s football.

Defending Olympic men’s tennis champion Andy Murray will be Great Britain's flag bearer inside Rio’s Maracana stadium on Friday.

An estimated three billion people will watch the ceremony, which has taken five years to produce and includes 300 dancers, 5,000 volunteers and 12,000 costumes.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Briton Dame Judi Dench are confirmed to have roles in the production before the 207 competing nations take part in the Parade of Nations.

There will be 10,500 athletes from a record 207 nations competing in Rio, including the Refugee Olympic Team, while it will be the first time Kosovo and South Sudan have taken part in the Games.

The Refugee Olympic Team will compete under the Olympic flag and has 10 members - five from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia.

With 554 athletes, the United States has the largest Olympic team, but spare a thought for 100m runner Etimoni Timuani, who is the only athlete from the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu.

The Rio Games will be the first to feature Olympians born since the year 2000 - and the youngest is 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh.

•Excerpted from a BBC report.

Source Daily Sports

Posted August 5, 2016

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