Golf Venue Manager Named

(ATR) Former United States Olympic Committee media manager Bob Condron is off to Rio.

Condron will serve as the golf venue media director for the Rio 2016 Games beginning in May. He detailed the announcement on his Facebook page giving his excitement about the position despite his supposed retirement.

"I've spent my life in golf...more than that it is in my soul," Condron said. "I will cross off that final chapter in my failed attempt to slip away silently in my professional life, and watch sunsets over some 18th green with a beverage in my hand and a sweet song in my heart."

In one week, on Mar. 8, golf will hold a test event at the Olympic course. It will be the first time since 1904 that the sport will be included in the Olympic program. Nine top Brazilian golfers will play 18-holes, the first to do so on the Gil Hanse designed course.

Organizers are confident that "99.9 percent of the venue" will be tested during the test event and remain excited for the legacy the course will provide.

Just getting to hold a test event on the course has been a struggle for Olympic organizers. Construction for the course was delayed and faced multiple environmental lawsuits, which caused delays. Even when the course was handed over in November, those still working on it cautioned the work remaining to prepare for the Games was substantial.

Biodiversity Returns to Golf Course

A new report commissioned by the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Appeals shows environmental growth in the area surrounding the Olympic golf course.

The report was the result of a lawsuit from groups claiming that the course was infringing on an existing nature reserve and would cause environmental destruction in the area.

"There was an environmental and landscape gain with the implementation of the project," the report read. "We can notice that the fauna’s population existing in the Olympic Golf Course area will promote an increase in the biodiversity and an enrichment of the wild fauna all through the implementation and operation phases."

In November, superintendent of the golf course Neil Cleverly told Around the Rings that he could see from his work that as the course was being built many animals that were "displaced have returned through its own cognizance."

According to the report over 250 different species of fauna are now present in the area, which is more than double the amount of species found in June 2013 when construction was beginning.

Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro

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