Olympic Village prepares to open in Rio

Описание: A look at the Olympic village in Rio de Janeiro where athletes participating in the Games will stay.

Ready or not, the Rio Olympics are opening their doors.

The Games begin in just over two weeks, but the Athletes Village opens officially on Sunday, meaning 10,500 athletes and another 7,000 staff members will start moving into the luxurious layout, with the pace picking up daily until the Aug. 5 opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium.

The 31-building compound should pamper the world's best. It's set among tennis courts, soccer fields, seven swimming pools - with mountains and the sea as a backdrop - and topped off by a massive dining-kitchen compound that's as large as three football fields.

Some delegations had already arrived on Saturday, easy to spot with banners or flags hanging off the sides of buildings.

Banners from Denmark, Great Britain, China and Canada are clear to see, whilst Slovenia are clearly very happy about being in Rio.

Everything about the village is massive, though fairly standard for recent Summer Olympics.

Organizers say the compound has:

10,160 rooms; 18,000 beds; seven laundries; an enormous, hospital-like clinic; a massive gym.

In addition, organizers are providing 450,000 condoms, three times more than London did four years ago.

Organizers said this is to encourage safe sex. Many had considered that increased supply to be due to Brazil's outbreak of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects.

Asked about it on Saturday, deputy chief medical officer Marcelo Patricio stated that it wasn't.

Then there's the dining-kitchen area, a sprawling tent where officials expect to serve about 60,000 meals daily to Olympians and staff - and perhaps another 10,000 daily to the hired help.

There will be lots of dirty plates, but none to wash. The plates will be biodegradable, made of corn and sugar cane.

Billionaire real estate developer Carlos Carvalho might have the only problem.

He aims to sell the 3,604 apartments after the Olympics - some in the range of $700,000.

Carvalho's company Carvalho Hosken has declined to say how many have been sold, but reports say only between 6-10 percent.

The project is a victim of Brazil's deep recession, the worst since the 1930s.

Carvalho Hosken earlier said the project's total cost was about $1.5 billion, including construction, land acquisition and other development costs.

Source:pSNTV/p