Blame It On The Olympics: Rio Mayor Laments Golf Course

They really know how to roll out the red carpet in Rio!

Bloomberg's David Biller looks at the growing protests over the Olympic golf course using water to grow grass as the country is in a historic drought, this, even though the course is irrigated with its own ponds and none of the water that humans are working to conserve.

But more silly is the distancing of Rio mayor Eduardo Paes, once a supporter of the course, now lamenting its creation as something that had to be done to get the Olympic Games.

Paes reveals that the course is looking for a private operator instead of maintaining it with taxpayer money, fantastic news considering the hostility the city has directed toward what will end up being one of the iconic venues in 2016.

The city wants to find an operator in the first half of the year and is preparing the course for 2016, when golf returns to the Olympics after 112 years, Paes said in an interview at the city palace. The winning bidder will hold a 10-year contract that could be extended for the same period.

“I’m not going to spend city money cutting that grass,” Paes said Jan. 23. “If it depends on me, that grass is going to grow high after the Olympics. I would never spend city money taking care of a golf course.”

And about the golf course, the mayor says:

“There are some things that you need to do to get the Olympics, things that you would never do, and I would never do a golf course,” he said. “I would never do a river for guys to do canoe slalom. There are probably 10 guys in Brazil doing that, and one in Rio, but these are the things you need to do because of the Olympics.”

They really know how to make you want to spend your tourist dollars in Rio, eh?

Last week the spam filters caught a super post from reader RJ, who found some really crisp images of the Rio course growing in. We talked about them today on Morning Drive.

And the links to them are here, here, here, here, here, here and here.