Organised by the Rio 2016 Organising Committee and the Brazilian Taekwondo Federation, the Aquece Rio International Taekwondo Tournament is due to take place from February 20 to 21.

Carioca Arena 3 will host taekwondo at the Olympics, but Carioca Arena 1 has been chosen to host the test event as it is said to be fully complete.

Carioca Arena 3 is 98 per cent finished with just the final installations to be completed, it is claimed.

Rio 2016 invited the top 16 countries in each of the competing weight categories - the women’s under 49kg and under 57kg and the men’s under 58kg and over 80kg - to compete in the event based on the November 2015 World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) Olympic rankings. 

Host nation Brazil automatically qualified four athletes, all of whom will be seeded fourth.  

They could have been seeded higher if they held a top-three Olympic ranking on November 1, 2015.

The three main goals of the test event are to test the field of play and all athlete facilities; train, coordinate and evaluate staff and contractors and volunteer performance in an event environment; and evaluate the performance of the technology systems and processes supporting all functional aspects.

"This competition is the only opportunity for athletes and teams of all Olympic weight categories to orient themselves with the future Olympic venue, and all Rio 2016 schedules, systems and processes that will be followed for the Olympic Games," said Mark Kauffman, the Rio 2016 taekwondo manager, on the event invitation.

The WTF is also working closely with Kauffmann and Rio 2016 on developing a sport presentation package aimed at increasing engagement with fans inside and outside of the stadium during the Games.

Sport presentation has been identified by the WTF as an area where there is room for improvement following London 2012.

As well as looking at bringing in taekwondo and Para-taekwondo demonstrations between sessions, the WTF and Kauffmann are looking at ways of leveraging Brazilian culture to keep fans engaged during breaks in play.

Taekwondo became a full Olympic medal sport at Sydney 2000 and has been on the programme ever since. 

It made its first appearance as a demonstration sport at Seoul 1988 and did so again at Barcelona 1992.