RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (RTV) - All eyes are on Rio de Janeiro with just days left before the Olympic games kick off Friday, the world's biggest toy maker - Lego is getting in on the excitement by creating a large model of the host city.
Creating this project was no small feat. It took 50 Lego model builders, thousands of hours and more than a year.
“The Lego model that we created for the Olympics here in Rio took 2,500 hours. We worked on this project actually for one year and over 50 people and three different countries were involved in creating all of the icons that are seen here,” explained Lego Master Model Builder Paul Chrzan.
“We did create 25 different icons of Rio, they are all visible here, the stadiums for the Olympics, Sambodromo, the arches, the Copacabana Palace, all in different scales. The really crazy thing about this is there is 10 different scales going on. If we did it in one scale the stadium would be that big,” Chrzan added, holding his arms outstretched. “There are approximately 953,000 pieces, just a little less than a million pieces.''
As many as half a million visitors are expected to sweep into town for the Olympic Games. Brazilian authorities say they are well prepared stand against any threats to security.