The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, are a major international multi-sport event to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The host city of the Games will be Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as announced at the 121st IOC Session (which is also the 13th Olympic Congress) held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. They are scheduled to be held from August 5 to 21, 2016. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will be held in the same city and organized by the same committee, and are scheduled to be held from September 7 to 18. The Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games will be the first edition held in South America, the second in Latin America (after Mexico City), the third edition held in the southern hemisphere (the first of which outside of Australia), and the first Games in a lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) country.

The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched on May 16, 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 13, 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each applicant city by January 14, 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on June 4, 2008: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo (which hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics). The IOC did not promote Doha to the Candidature phase, despite scoring higher than selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro, due to their intent of hosting the Olympics in October, outside of the IOC's sporting calendar. Prague and Baku also failed to make the cut.

Gabrielle Douglas (born 31 December 1995) is an elite artistic gymnast who is a two-time member of the U.S. National Gymnastics Team and was a member of the U.S. team that won the gold medal in the team finals at the 2011 World Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

In 2010, she moved from Virginia to West Des Moines, Iowa to live with a host family so she could train with Liang Chow, who is the coach of 2008 Olympic balance beam champion Shawn Johnson.

Douglas started gymnastics when she was 6 years old, after her sister Arielle convinced her mother to let her do gymnastics. Gabby went on to earn the 2004 State Championship title in Virginia.

Douglas made her debut on the national scene at the 2010 Nastia Liukin SuperGirl Cup, a televised Level 10 meet held in Worcester, Massachusetts, where Douglas placed fourth all-around.

Her first elite meet was the 2010 CoverGirl Classic in Chicago, Illinois, where Douglas placed third on balance beam, 6th on vault and 9th all-around in the junior division.

The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt, OJ, C.D. ( /ˈjuːseɪn/; born 21 August 1986), is a Jamaican sprinter and a five-time World and three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is the world record and Olympic record holder in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and (along with his teammates) the 4×100 metres relay. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events, and is one of only seven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event.

Bolt won a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist at the time (since surpassed by Jacko Gill). In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in less than 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking the previous world junior record held by Roy Martin by two-tenths of a second. He turned professional in 2004, and although he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, he missed most of the next two seasons due to injuries. In 2007, he broke Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican record with a run of 19.75 s.