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The Summer Olympics officially begin in Rio with the opening ceremony tonight

Posted at 7:53 AM, Aug 05, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-05 10:57:36-04

The Summer Olympics officially begin in Rio with the opening ceremony tonight. 

Three billion people around the world are expected to watch. 

The event will include Samba dancers and a 12-year-old rapper whose music is against racism. 

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen and model lea t  making her the first transgender person to have a major role at an Olympic opening ceremony.

But don't expect the big budget shows you've seen at past Olympics.

Rio organizers say their budget is just about 56-million dollars. 

That's for the opening and closing ceremonies for both the Olympic and Paralympic games.
 That's 12 times less than London's budget, and 20 times less than Beijing's.
12-thousand athletes are expected to march in the opening ceremony, including a refugee team for the first time in history. 
Now we're hearing from them for the first time.
Yusra Mardini says, "We are not only refugees we are like everyone in the world. We can do something, we can achieve something." 
That swimmer you just heard from escaped the war in Syria.
She pushed a sinking boat for more than three hours to survive and is now a refugee in Germany.
Ten athletes will compete on the refugee team.