President Park Geun-hye visited the national training center for Olympic athletes Wednesday to offer her encouragement as the one-month countdown to the start of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games has begun.

Park met with athletes, coaches and top sports officials at the National Training Center in northern Seoul, and asked them to ensure that the athletes can compete at their best during the Olympics that will run from Aug. 5-21 in Brazil.

The president also instructed her government officials to devise "thorough" measures to ensure the safety of the athletes in the South American nation, which has been gripped by economic woes, political instability, safety issues and health concerns stemming from the Zika virus.

The virus, which spreads primarily through an infected Aedes species mosquito, has been linked to thousands of birth defects in newborn babies like abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains in Brazil.

The president was accompanied by Sports Minister Kim Jong-deok; Kim Jung-haeng and Kang Young-joong, the co-chairs of the Korean Olympic Committee; Chung Mong-gyu, the chief of the Korean athletic delegation; and Cho Yang-ho, the head of the Korea Table Tennis Association.

Some 210 Korean athletes -- the smallest delegation since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics -- are expected to participate in the Brazil Olympics. The country has set its sights on winning at least 10 gold medals. (Yonhap)