RIO DE JANEIRO — China thrived at the Beijing Games in 2008. Britain excelled in London in 2012. Next year, Brazil will try to show it can produce a historic performance at its home Olympics.
The nation was working hard to make sure its athletes can be successful at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, investing record amounts to get them ready to perform in front of a home crowd.
Nations usually improve their performance at home, but there were still doubts about what Brazil can do considering the soccer-mad country historically invested very little in Olympic sports.