Rio Update: Still Behind, Some Hope, Backup Plan In Place
/The Guardian's Ewan Murray sums up the mood of Monday's International Golf Federation press conference at Hoylake, where there was no sugar coating the golf venue preparation in Rio.
Suggesting golf's return to the Olympics could be "overshadowed--or ruined" by an unprepared golf course, those representing the IGF lumped the course in with other lagging Rio venues. And revealed a contingency plan is in place for a worst case scenario, but would not say what that was.
Murray writes:
When asked to provide a 100% guarantee that the course would be ready, Votaw said: “Predictions are very dangerous things.” In respect of a worst-case scenario, he added: “As far as a contingency plan, I think we’re in no different place than all the other sports in the Olympic Games for Rio 2016 and the readiness and preparedness of Rio.
“There are contingency plans. What they are, is not something we’re going to share right now, but there are contingency plans based on catastrophic, if you will, but if that happens we’re in the same boat with everybody else in that regard.”
**Charles Sale of The Daily Mail grilled Votaw over an aerial photograph as evidence that the golf course is not going to be ready. Granted, the project is slow, but using an aerial as evidence is a bit dicey.
Q. Having seen all the last-minute preparations for the World Cup, where does this confidence come that this golf course will be ready in time? At the moment it looks like a construction site, with aerial photographs taken two weeks ago. They're miles and miles away from sort of operational stage. I don't see it being ready anywhere near in time. So you must have a golf course, not far from the hotel was in Barra as a contingency plan.
TY VOTAW: I'm not quite sure what photo you're referring to. I know there was a flyover in June, and that was before we began sodding. So I think if you would go there today, it would look much better than what you saw two months ago.
Q. It was taken a week ago. It was in The Times. They flew over the course, and it looked like a construction site.
TY VOTAW: We have people on the ground, not in the air every day, that we know what the progress is.
Q. It's amazing confidence in somebody that's been to Brazil. I wish you luck.
PETER DAWSON: All I can say to that is that progress has been doing that recently (gesturing upwards). It is so much faster now per month than it was a year ago, and it's accelerating. But there's no complacency there, it's tight.
