This summer, more than 10,500 athletes from 206 different national Olympic Committees have descended on Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 games.

Each has brought with them their own hopes and fears, and their own individual stories, backgrounds and traditions. It is the role of each national delegation to make sure that its athletes are as well prepared for the competition and feel as at home as possible – a task made more difficult by the delays in completing the construction of the Olympic Village. But Fr Leandro Lenin Tavares and his inter-religious team of ministers have a very different task – to cater to the athletes’ spiritual needs.