Arena Carioca 1 is officially delivered

Photo: Beth Santos

Arena Carioca 1 was officially delivered this Tuesday (13.01). The facilities are part of the Barra da Tijuca Olympic Park and will play host to the basketball, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby at Games Time. The first sport event will be held this Friday (15.01), with the opening basketball match, that will work as a test-event for the Games. The competition lasts until Sunday (17.01).

Measuring 33m in height and built over a 28 thousand square metres area, Arena Carioca 1 has 282 rooms, 49 lavatories, 8 changing rooms and six lifts. Its capacity will reach 16 thousand people at Games Time.
This Friday, Brazil's, Australia's, Argentina's and Venezuela's national squads will officially open the facilities. The squads will face each other in 2016's first test-event. After the basketball, Arena Carioca 1 will be used for weight lifting from 18 January onwards and Olympic wrestling at the end of January.

"The arena has a system that allows for assembly and disassembly to take place in a matter of hours. We're going to have the best basketball court in the world in three days and then, we change the whole competition area for the next event", points out Erinaldo Batista, facilities manager at the Rio 2016 Committee.

Structure

The court measures 608 m² and was built using two types of solid wood, one for the competition area and another for the surroundings. In order to ensure the best performance for athletes, there is a flexible support system, made up of rubber shock absorbers. The accessibility project includes ramps that provide direct access to the Via Olímpica (Olympic Path), in addition to four external staircases. The public lavatories are adapted for short people and those with little mobility. There are also exclusive lavatories and changing rooms for people with disabilities, with safety buttons, as well as sound and visual signals. There are accessible seats on the grandstands and the stairs have non-slippery floor and visual contrast bands.

The arena may also be used to host other events, like trade shows and concerts. Its high performance wing will be implemented in the area adjacent to Arena Carioca 2, turning it into a set of equipment to be used by the country's best boxers, as well as taekwondo and fencing athletes. Part of the stands will be disassembled after the Games, leaving the arena with a permanent capacity of 7.5 thousand people, which may be increased through temporary structures.

Sources: Rio City Hall and Rio 2016