We’re in the countdown zone. Teams are arriving, the Sambodromo is being rapidly polished up for the debut next Friday morning, and there’s a growing air of anticipation. On Monday this was just a training field, this weekend it’s starting to seem like an Olympic venue. We’ve now got a steady stream of broadcast media coming in; today, we had Aida Roman being interviewed by Mexican TV.

Aida Roman does press

Some more pics from the last two days:

TPE arrahs

Areneo David of Malawi

MEX RW

TPE RW

IND RW

TPE RM

Marcus D’Almeida

And look who turned up late this afternoon – not to train, but just to have a look around. There’s been three Korean camera crews hanging around the Sambodromo for two whole days. When the Great White Sharks finally turned up for a nose around it was like watching shipwrecked men suddenly find a barrel of water.

KOR turn up, hit the social media

Hail Woojin, King Of Media

Choi Misun. “Win it? Yeah, probably.”

“So I put one in there, right, but the next one went in there…”

This pic of Park Chae Soon actually taken by Ku Bonchan. He snatched the camera off me.

Some external news: Ki Bo Bae sticks to the script in a video piece on MSN, and feel free to enjoy the youthful exuberance of the Korean men’s team.

Turns out Atanu Das collects stamps. Who knew? A rather charming story in a tidal wave of media hype coming from the notoriously tempestuous Indian media. The Indian team have been out here working damn hard all week. If they don’t bring something home, watch the furies being unleashed.

Marcus D’Almeida in a rather flowery news piece (in Portuguese).  The Brazilian team have been working really hard out here, and I’d love to see them go deep.  Rather pleased that my piece on Bernado Oliveira and the Brazilian squad made it onto the front page of Rio2016.com.

Patrick Huston has made another video about his journey to Rio:

I’ll do my best to keep blogging over next week, but it really depends on how busy I am. Stay tuned. Thank you!