How Christ The Redeemer statue came to dominate the Rio skyline: Fascinating photos show how iconic statue was built and the story behind it

The Christ The Redeemer monument is the symbol of the Rio De Janeiro Olympics, watching over athletes as they compete. But the story of how the mountain-top statue was constructed (centre) is an extraordinary engineering tale. The head (top right) and hands were designed by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski (bottom left) and shipped from Europe to the Brazilian capital. The project's nine years of construction (top left) was overseen by Brazilian architect Heitor da Silva Costa (bottom right).