Rio 2016 has confirmed the details of the golf test event that will be staged at the newly constructed Olympic Golf Course on 8 March. The Aquece Rio Golf Challenge will feature nine leading Brazilian players, five men and four women, playing an exhibition event in the stroke play format.
Team Ireland Chef de Mission Kevin Kilty and Deputy Chef de Mission Stephen Martin will be in Brasil on the OCI’s final recce during this time.They will be joined on the 8th by Ireland’s Golf Team Leader Paul McGinley to capture as much information during the test event to give Team Ireland golfers a performance advantage.
The new venue, which will host the first Olympic golf tournament since the St Louis 1904 Games, was unveiled last November. Designed by American Gil Hanse, the 970,000m² course in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood of Rio will have capacity for 15,000 fans during the Olympic tournament on 11-20 August.
The test event will, however, be closed to the public as Games organisers focus on testing operations at the new venue. A delegation from the International Golf Federation (IGF) will be present alongside the Rio 2016 team to observe the event and ensure that the key areas are tested.
“The main aspects that we will test are the course itself and the results system,” said Claudia Guedes, the Rio 2016 sport manager for golf. “It’s a tough course, there is quite a lot of wind, so it will bring the best out of the players.”
The male players are Lucas Lee, Alexandre Rocha, Rafael Becker and Daniel Stapff, who are the second to fifth-best placed Brazilians respectively in the world rankings, plus Rafael Barcellos, who currently leads the domestic rankings and is the 12th-best placed Brazilian in the world.
The female players are Miriam Nagl, Victória Lovelady, Candy Hannemann and Luciane Lee – the top four-placed Brazilians in the world rankings.
The nine players will play in groups of three, with the first tee-off being at 11am on 8th March. Rio 2016 will deploy 104 volunteers during the test event, 80 in the results area, and 24 sport-specialists.
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