Rio de Janeiro: The Rio Olympics are yet to produce their final medal tally but one team has already claimed victory. A victory they say is like "a tiny flea's triumph over an elephant".

That flea, a community that lives in the vicinity of Rio's new Olympic Park, came together to compete for the right to remain in their homes when their main opponent, Rio's city hall, tried to clean up the area ahead of the 2016 Games.

"We already feel victorious," said Joao Felix dos Santos, who has lived in Vila Autodromo for 23 years and watched his original home being bulldozed three months ago.

"They thought they could kick us around. We were too small, fighting against the government might. The power was all in their corner but we have rights," dos Santos said. "We won."

The story goes back further than the preparation for the Olympics. The battle, that local residents say has its true roots in real estate potential, has gone on for more than a decade.

Luiz Claudio da Silva, a sports teacher and personal trainer, has lived in the area for 22 years. A car park now stands where his house once was.

"The Olympics were only a pretext. In total 23,000 families, 70,000 people have been removed from their homes in Rio de Janeiro because of the Olympics. But we know, it's no secret, that what is behind this is real estate speculation," da Silva told Fairfax Media.

First came a plan in 2000 to close Rio's famous Jacarepagua International Racetrack along with the community named after it – originally to make room for a residential development that was bitterly opposed by some residents.

Then the famous Formula One circuit where the late Brazilian champion Ayrton Senna made his debut and where Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost took to the podium, was to be become a sports complex for the Pan-American Games of 2007.

Later authorities tried to remove the vila, by now home to about 4000 people or 824 working-class families and featuring brick homes and paved streets, owing to it being a "threat to the local natural environment".

From around 2008, the need for the community's removal materialised in the plans to build Olympics infrastructure and negotiations over compulsory acquisition of the houses by the city began.

But residents already had two lots of documents issued by consecutive state governments formalising home ownership and they were not willing to budge. A law amendment – Article 74 – designated the area as having "special social interest for residential purposes", further guaranteeing the houses on the site.

But in 2012 the racing circuit was closed and the push to remove nearby residents became physical.

Local politician Renato Cinco, in a visit to the area in February, said the city mayor Eduardo Paes had spent $200 million reais ($81 million) to remove the residents, when $20 million would have been enough to adapt the neighbourhood to Olympic and environmental projects.

"They could have promoted happiness, instead of unhappiness," Cinco said.

Paes in turn said all families were offered alternative accommodation at a new condominium, Parque Carioca, built within middle class standards with facilities for the disabled, plus landscaping, barbecue, pool and play areas. Those who refused to move were offered compensation.

In March, Paes told Folha de S.Paulo a new urban plan for Vila Autodromo included new houses for the few who refused to move, water, sewerage and other services as well as two schools and play grounds. 

At the height of the fight in March, bulldozers moved in to demolish the houses whose owners had given in to lucrative offers and to pressure others to join them. Unwilling remaining residents were pulled away from their homes by police with batons, their Facebook pages filled with images of bloodied faces and arguments with police.

"I was beaten, even the priest was beaten," said da Silva, who with his family and 83-year-old mother-in-law sought refuge in the community's small church after the heavy machinery rendered them homeless.

"We couldn't leave. We had two documents issued by two state governors, the last one a lease for 99 years renewable for another 99. We had rights." 

Dos Santos also witnessed beatings. "There was a house with a father and mother and a child aged one and a bit and another child of two, and they came to take them by force.

"The association president called and we all went to stop them, but we all took a beating. The civil police had batons and even rubber bullets.

"It was like war. I spent many nights awake, we had no electricity, we didn't know if [they cut it] on purpose. It was a three-year war. It looked like we lived in Iraq – with the houses demolished, and those neighbours of 20 years, we watched them all leave."

Where forest and swamp stood along the less developed end of Barra da Tijuca, high-rise condos now stand like tooth picks in a holder. New roads and express bus lanes spaghetti along the strip of land between lagoon and striking mountains devoid of favelas. Together they create a sense of progress.

The athletes' village, otherwise known as Ilha Pura, will be one of the real estate complexes available for sale after the last Paralympic delegation leaves these shores. Others are continually being built.

But in the corner, nestled between the freeway and the carpark of the Olympics media centre, where a new access road was meant to be, just 20 families remain.

One original and precarious three-storey house has also been allowed to stay by law as a symbol of the community's struggle. The others, all basic, white and identical, look out of place in a city synonymous with haphazard, colourful shanty towns.

Santos and his wife, Suely Campos, have been in their modest two-bedroom home only five days when Fairfax Media visits. They lived in a demountable on site while the house was being built, refusing to leave for fear of never being allowed back.

"They wanted us to go to an apartment. Many people went. But we stayed. This is home," dos Santos said.

The apartments offered to removed families are part of a federal government program considered a success by politicians intent on improving leaving standards.

Many at Vila Autodromo ended up accepting above-market-rate compensation, but the remaining 20 families negotiated to stay with the help of non-government organisations, citizen photographers and a willing international media.

Residents now have a new piece of paper that says they have a right to be here. Dos Santos is not sure he can trust it.

And he doesn't seem to like the new house very much.

"We're getting used to it. We miss our first house. That house we built with sweat. One wall, a room at a time, we had to move into one to build another slowly, as we were able to afford it. I moved from there to the container, when they broke my house, I cried."

To the Rio 2016 organiser's credit, there has been no attempt to shield Vila Autodromo from the world media.

To the contrary, reporters from all corners of the globe have walked freely through the single-street neighbourhood to interview residents, photograph their activism and purchase homemade food from Ms Campos, whose culinary skills have outdone the designated media lunch room at Olympic Park.

Dos Santos' six-year-old granddaughter, Ana Clara, plays in the front yard with one of four dogs remaining from the 30 or so left behind when the other families left.

With the help of the internet, vet services, dog food and medicine were donated to the community to ensure the animals' well-being. Most were adopted into new homes elsewhere.

A photography exhibition now stands in front yards documenting their struggle. One house has been transformed into an exhibition space for the visiting media.

Da Silva's wife, Maria da Penha Macena, who became the community spokesperson fronting many an international camera, already has a medal of her own. In March she received an award from the Rio de Janeiro legislative assembly for her dedication to human rights.

The freshly painted perimeter fence, white for just a few days, is now a changing canvas for the political messages of a group of neighbours turned family, keen to keep their victory in the limelight.

As for the future, as the Olympics draw to a close and their fight seems won, dos Santos has only one wish.

"I just ask that they forget us once and for all."