Rio de Janeiro Begins Samba to 2016 Olympics

(ATR) The countdown begins for Rio de Janeiro, which will hold the Opening Ceremony of the 31st Olympiad on Aug. 5, 2016.

Rio had its first meeting with the IOC as bona fide Olympic organizers on Saturday, only 18 hours after the historic vote that will bring the Games to South America for the first time.

"They said to us 'Relax. Winners, relax," said Carlos Nuzman, the bid president who will lead the new organizing committee.

The first meeting with the IOC in Rio will potentially be held in mid-November and will be a seminar with the government and other entities involved in preparations for the Games.

"Then we'll start," Nuzman said.

Nuzman and Carlos Roberto Osorio left Copenhagen on Saturday for Rio after holding one last press conference. Organizers are considering a celebration at Corcovado Mountain at the foot of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Monday. There definitely will be an Olympic flag-raising on Monday at City Hall.

At the press conference, the famous map of the world highlighting Olympic cities appeared on the screen for the final time. With the touch of a button, evolved as Rio lit up South America with "1 Games."

Bid leaders also showed off new pens that say "Host City" instead of "Candidate City." The committee, which has not yet decided what it will call itself, will introduce its new logo in three years.

Olympic organizers will coordinate with the World Cup, which will be held in Brazil two years before the Games.

Nuzman said the two events need the same infrastructure such as airport, roads, subway and telecommunications.

"All of them will be ready two years before, and the IOC will have a chance to have these to test," Nuzman said. "When we won the Pan American Games, we had four years and 10 months. Now we have seven years, almost double of the time."

Predicting the Vote

Nuzman said he met with Osorio and international relations chief Mario Cilente on Sept. 28 to make a final list of voters and talk about strategy.

They predicted the final round would be Rio 67, Madrid 33. The actual vote was 66-32.

Nuzman said the Rio team spoke more than once with all IOC members, even as many as five times. "Some say, 'Come on, it's too much,'" he said.

President Lula also sent a personal letter to the members - "not a circular letter," Nuzman said -- which could have been a snipe at the letter Obama sent to select IOC members -- and the ambassador in each country had the letter delivered by hand to the members.

Nuzman said Rio won the votes of many IOC members on June 17 after presenting its case at the candidate cities briefing in Lausanne.

"One member told me, 'Come on you need to win again the final presentation," Nuzman said. "It's not easy."

Appeal to Colleagues

Nuzman persuaded enough of his fellow IOC members to vote for Rio to secure a win. Gunnar Ericsson was not able to do the same thing in 1997 when Stockholm lost out to Athens for the 2004 Games.

Although Chicago offered star power with President Barack Obama, Rio has its own charismatic leader in President Lula.

"He's worked for two years and knows everything about the project, he knows everything we need and he approved our Games plan," Nuzman said. "The other three, with all my respect, they didn't. This is a huge difference."

Lula has said he invited Obama to come when they were at the G-20 Summit.

Nuzman added that it was his "very, very strong wish that the U.S. president make the trip."

"Rio needed him to come," he said, "to not have excuses for the future."

Written by Karen Rosen.