Inside the Numbers of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics
Before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro get underway, there are some key numbers you need to know. And considering the No. 1 Olympics-related thing people have been talking about for the past year is mosquitoes, we might as well start there.
0.0074: Percent of visitors to Rio likely to come in contact with the Zika virus and bring it home with them while they're contagious, according to a recent study by Gregg Gonsalves of Yale University's Global Health Justice Partnership that was detailed on United Press International's health page. Granted, if you've watched any movie about a zombie apocalypse or a nation-crippling airborne disease, you know it takes only one Patient Zero to start an outbreak. But 37 out of 500,000 isn't nearly the threat some have made it out to be. "It is more likely, by some estimates, that visitors to the Olympics will contract influenza than Zika," Dr. Amesh Adalja of the University of Pittsburgh's UPMC Center for Health Security said.
TOP NEWS
Wemby Breaks Playoff Record
.jpg?w=256)
WWE Raw Results & Grades š
KD Burner Saga Didn't Bother Rockets
450,000: Condoms the International Olympic Committee will distribute from clinics and vending machines in the athletes' village, according to the Associated Press. Despite its efforts, the IOC may not be able to protect athletes from Zika-carrying mosquitoes, but it is doing its best to make certain no one leaves with gonorrhea.
85,000: People on the combined security force in charge of protecting Olympic venues, the athletes' village and important locations such as the airport, according to the Rio Olympics' official website. However, some of those officers are greeting tourists at the airport with a "Welcome to Hell" sign, according to CNN, and New Zealand jiu-jitsu athlete Jason Lee learned firsthand that not everyone in a uniform is there to help. "I was threatened with arrest if I did not get in their private car and accompany them to two ATMs to withdraw a large sum of money for a bribe," Lee wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post, according to Chuck Schilken of the Los Angeles Times.
306: Events spread across 34 sports. One might think that means there will be 918 medals awarded. However, the combat events (boxing, judo, taekwondo and wrestling) award two bronze medals in each weight class, and there's always the possibility of a tie for third place in an event like pole vault. There were 962 medals awarded in 302 events in 2012.
30: Gold medals that will be awarded Saturday, Aug. 20āthe most of any day during the Games. If you can pick only one day to vegetate in front of the TV for 12 hours, there's your best choice. Basketball, futbol, handball and track and field are among the sports with at least one medal ceremony that day.
206: Countries (not including independent Olympic athletes and refugee Olympic athletes) that will be represented in Rio, according to Maps of World.
11,040: Athletes who will participate in Rio, according to Maps of World. The United States leads the way with 555 athletes, while Brazil (465), Germany (425), China (413), Australia (410) and France (404) all exceed 400.
14: Countries on the aforementioned list that are represented by just one athlete. For Afghanistan, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Dominica, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Laos, Malawi, the Marshall Islands, Sao Tome and Principe, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Togo and Tuvalu, the dream for a 2016 Olympic medal rests entirely on one person's shoulders. No pressure!
7,500,000: Tickets available across 717 sessions. Slightly more than half of those tickets were to be made available for $30 or less with the hope that they would be affordable to locals.
$2,250: Price of the cheapest ticket for the opening ceremony on StubHub as of Sunday. According to the ticket pricing guide on Rio2016.com, the retail value of a Category C ticket for the opening ceremony is 1,400 Brazilian reals, or approximately $435. Nothing says "affordable for all" like a 517 percent markup.
6,755: Hours of scheduled Rio programming by NBCUniversal. According to TeamUSA.org, 260.5 of those hours (or 13.7 per day) will air on NBC, while 2,084 more hours will be spread across 10 other NBC-owned networks: Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, MSNBC, NBCSN, NBC Universo, Telemundo, USA Network and two specialty channels for basketball and futbol. Better yet, roughly 4,500 hours of coverage will be live-streamed on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. If you can't find the event you're looking for, try harder. It's out there somewhere.
Enough bouncing around. Let's count down to Rio!
10: Events in the decathlon, which Team USA's Asthon Eaton should win comfortably. Those events are the 100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400-meter dash one day and the 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500-meter run the next.
9: Olympic gold medals Jamaica's Usain Bolt would own if he wins the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and 4x100-meter relay. Despite a recent hamstring injuryāwhich appears to be healed, based on his performance in the 200 at the IAAF Diamond League in London on July 22āBolt will be favored to win gold in all three events, as he did in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, as well as the 2009, 2013 and 2015 World Championships. If he gets there, Bolt would enter a five-way tie with Finland's Paavo Nurmi, the Soviet Union's Larisa Latynina and the United States' Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis for the second-most gold medals in Olympic history.
8: Russian athletes in canoeing, modern pentathlon and sailing who were banned Tuesday from competing in the Olympics, increasing the fallout from the country's state-sponsored doping scandal, according to BBC. Russia has finished in the top three in total medals in each of the past five Summer Olympics, but doing so in 2016 will be quite the challenge with so many of the country's best athletes (115 and counting) not allowed to participate.
7: Athletes (six outfield players and a goalkeeper) on the court per side in a game of handball. One of the most action-packed sports in the Summer Olympics, handball draws a cult-like following every four years.
6: Host cities for Olympic futbol. In addition to Rio, matches in both men's and women's futbol will be played in Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Manaus, Salvador and Sao Paulo. Best of luck trying to catch a game in each venue, though, as a drive from Manaus to Rio is about the same distance as one from Los Angeles to Miami.
5: Consecutive Summer Olympics in which Team USA has produced the most medals of any country. China did beat the United States in gold medals in 2008, but in terms of total medals, the United States has a winning streak dating back to 1996.
4: Starters in the 2016 NBA All-Star Game who turned down Team USA. LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard opted out of the Olympics, while Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade were never invited. Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Paul George and Kyle Lowry helped the United States dominate its four exhibitions, but it's not nearly the team it could have been.
3: Individual events Michael Phelps will swim in, as well as potentially three relays. His medal count stands at 22, which is already the most of any athlete in history. Can he get to 25 or more in his final Olympics?
2: New sports this year: golf and rugby sevens. The former is on basic cable just about every weekend of the year, but the latter is something most Americans have never watched before. Given our obsession with American football, rugby should be a smash hit.
1: Countries with any hope of winning gold in table tennis. If you think the United States is good on the basketball court, get ready to watch China dominate a smaller court. In London four years ago, China won gold and silver in men's and women's singles, as well as gold medals in both team competitions. And in 2008, China won as many medals as possible, sweeping gold, silver and bronze in men's and women's singles and winning gold in both team events.
0: Pokemon you can catch while in Rio. On his Facebook page (via CNN), Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes asked Nintendo to make "Pokemon Go" available in Rio in time for the Olympics. But the developers of the augmented reality app that has taken much of the world by storm said it will not launch in Brazil by then.
Figures accurate as of July 31 unless otherwise stated.
.jpg?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "NFL Strength of Schedules š")
