Celebrating the Rio 2016 Olympics

The Refugee Team

Have you been following the Rio Olympics!

Which team are you supporting! Perhaps this is the first time you are cheering on the Australian team as well as the team from your own country of origin.

The Olympic games bring a lot of excitement beyond sporting competitions and medal tallies.  There are a lot of reasons to celebrate:

1. These are the first Olympic games to be hosted in the continent of South America so we congratulate our students from this part of the world, specially from Brazil.
2. To help taxi drivers in Brazil to communicate with tourists they were given free English lessons.
3. The Olympics unite people from across the globe with 205 participating countries and over 11,000 athletes.
4. There are over 70,000 volunteers who keep the Olympic spirit alive.
5. There are 10 Indigenous athletes on the Australian team.
6. This is the first time a team of refugee athletes competes in the Olympics. They include 2 swimmers from Syria, 5 track athletes from South Sudan, 2 judokas from Congo and a marathon runner from Ethiopia.
7. The “Laurel Award” was presented for the first time to “Kip Keino”, the two-time Olympic champion runner from Kenya, for his outstanding contribution to education and culture through sport.  After retiring from competition he opened a children’s home for 100 Kenyan orphans, a school in an isolated area for 300 children and a sports training centre for promising athletes in Kenya.

• What Rio Olympics moments, stories or facts have you found exciting?
• If you could join the Olympics as an athlete, what sport would you choose and why?
• The Rio Olympics cost over US$11 billion.  Do you think this spending is justified?  Why/why not?

Add your comments below.