Looking at the Rio 2016 Olympics by the Numbers Will Blow Your Mind
While the Olympics are mostly focused on the best of athletic excellence, there’s much more to the international event. From the Official Team USA Olympic (classic AF) opening ceremony uniforms to Katy Perry’s super inspirational anthem, “Rise” (which may or may not have beaten out Taylor Swift’s offering), we know you want all of the fascinating deets. That’s why you have to check out these mind-blowing numbers that will give you a totally new perspective on one of the oldest competitions in the world.
The youngest members of Team USA are gymnast Lauren Hernandez and hurdler Sydney McLaughlin; both hail from New Jersey and are just 16 years old. They will be among the 10,500 athletes from 206 countries who will be competing for one of 4,924 medals that are up for grabs in 42 disciplines across 28 sports. Is your head spinning? Ours, too.
Taking a turn to the, well, icky side of the equation, 32 tons of dead fish will apparently be removed from a local lagoon. Why? Well, so as not to impede the events or creep peeps out while they watch the rowing and canoeing competitions. It’s also an effort to prevent bug-based infections that are of concern, along with the threat of the Zika virus. There have been 26,000 cases of the illness reported in Rio during the first three months of this year, and they are hoping not to add to that number. Yikes!
Another concern is security for both the competitors and spectators, which is why 85,000 security personnel have been brought in to work the Rio Games. This is twice as many as during the 2012 London Olympics.
The doubled security is part of the reason that the overall cost of the 2016 Rio Olympics is estimated to be at — take a deep breath — $11.5 billion. Yes, BILLION. That number surely seems about right to NBC, who has already made over $1 billion in domestic sales for the games. Cha-ching!
In the end, it will all add up to epic games, dreams come true and a heck of a lot of money spent and made.
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(Photos via WalletHub + Christian Petersen, Ronald Martinez, Warren Little/Getty)