Rio crowns legacy as Olympic pool opens

Rio 2016 legacy plan completed as Olympic Aquatics Stadium pool opens for community use. After being dismantled and relocated, the main swimming facility from the 2016 Summer Games held in Brazil reopened its doors to the public last December in Parque Oeste Ana Gonzaga, offering free activities for residents.

The return of the pool marks the end of a reuse process that has stretched on for almost a decade and was shaped by governance, financial and political difficulties in the aftermath of the Games. During that time, the circulation of images of abandoned venues fuelled the perception of paralysis, even though legacy projects continued to be carried out gradually. With this reopening, the reuse plan for the Games' temporary pools is now complete.

The reopened facility was once the setting for some of the most memorable moments of the Olympic competition, including Michael Phelps's final races and the farewell of current International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry. Now, far from the international spotlight, it has been integrated into a newly created park in the west of Rio de Janeiro, an area that includes some of the city's neighbourhoods facing the greatest socio-economic difficulties.

Managed by the municipal sports department, the pool offers free swimming and aqua aerobics classes for all ages, organised into groups ranging from babies to older adults, as well as recreational sessions at weekends. The response has been immediate: the initial 700 places were filled within hours and there is already a waiting list, prompting the authorities to consider expanding capacity.

"Seeing the pool from my final Olympic Games now welcoming families and young local swimmers in Rio is incredibly special," Coventry said. "This is what Olympic legacy looks like: turning world-class venues into everyday places where people can be active and feel part of their community."

Rio mayor Eduardo Paes stressed during the inauguration that this initiative brings to a close the last outstanding project linked to those Games. "This is the last Olympic legacy project that still remained to be delivered," he said. "All the facilities, the X Park, the Rita Lee Park, the schools built in the West Zone, everything that was built for the Olympics was put to use afterward. This pool came from the Rio 2016 Aquatics Stadium. The structure of the stadium gave rise to many other things, and the pool had already been planned with the intention of being brought here to serve the population. And we want to develop athletes here. We are very proud to bring this Olympic legacy to the West Zone."

 

The original aquatic venue was conceived from the outset as a temporary structure, with the aim of being dismantled after the event and its components redistributed to different parts of the country. However, the implementation of that plan was delayed longer than expected. Even so, the process moved forward in stages: in December 2017, one of the training pools was installed at an air force academy in Guaratinguetá; in December 2018, another was moved to Salvador as a competition and community-use facility; and in July 2019, the pool intended for water polo warm-ups was converted into a community centre in Manaus. The reopening of the main facility definitively completes that journey.

The new space in Parque Oeste forms part of a broader development that includes viewing points, ecumenical space, showers, changing rooms and food outlets, with plans to add playgrounds, multi-sports courts, sand courts and two state schools. The intention is to establish the area as a hub for cultural, sporting and social activity.

Arram Kim, the IOC's head of Olympic impact and legacy, highlighted the symbolic value of the initiative for the local community. "For Rio's West Zone, the pool is more than a sports facility, it's a symbol of inclusion and opportunity, providing space for physical activity, talent development and community life, It reflects the IOC's broader approach to venues: ensuring that any new venue is designed with a clear post-Games purpose so it can continue to serve communities for years to come."

The reopening forms part of a broader programme of transformation involving spaces linked to the 2016 Games. In the same western area, the Deodoro canoe slalom channel was adapted into a public swimming pool just weeks after the event and continues to host both high-performance training and competitions. In the Olympic Park, Carioca Arena 3 was turned into a sports education centre in 2024, while materials from the Future Arena, designed under the concept of ‘nomadic architecture’, were reused to build four state schools.

That same year saw the opening of Rita Lee Park, which transformed a former pedestrian area into an open space for sport and physical activity. This was followed by the full refurbishment of the BMX track, which reopened in January 2025, and the opening in August of that same year of the Rio Olympic Museum in the velodrome, conceived as an interactive journey through the Games and their subsequent impact.

Outside the park, the Maracanã Stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies as well as football matches during the event, came under the management of clubs Flamengo and Fluminense, and in 2025 it welcomed more than three million spectators to matches and concerts.

With this aquatic facility now in operation in Parque Oeste Ana Gonzaga, the plan for the reuse of the demountable pools has finally been completed, bringing to a close one of the longest-running chapters in the legacy of those Games, now directed towards the everyday use of local people.