Chicago's Olympic Bid Results

ETWolverine · Oct 2, 2009, 11:45 AM

Interesting.

Rio wins right to host the 2016 Olympics - Olympics - Yahoo! Sports

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Rio wins right to host the 2016 Olympics

By JOHN LEICESTER, AP Sports Writer 18 minutes ago

COPENHAGEN (AP)—Finally, South America gets an Olympics. The 2016 Games are going to Rio de Janeiro.

In a vote of high drama, the bustling Brazilian carnival city of beaches, mountains and samba beat surprise finalist Madrid, which got a big helping hand from a very influential friend.

Chicago was knocked out in the first round—in one of the most shocking defeats ever in International Olympic Committee voting. Even Tokyo, which had trailed throughout the race, did better—eliminated after Chicago in the second round.

Rio spoke to IOC members’ consciences: the city argued that it was simply unfair that South America has never hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly.

“It is a time to address this imbalance,” Brazil’s charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told the IOC’s members before they voted. “It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country.”

The bearded former union leader disappeared into a huge group hug with the joyous Rio team after IOC president Jacques Rogge announced that the city won. Football great Pele had tears in his eyes.

Madrid’s surprising success in reaching the final round came after former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made an unusual appeal for the Spanish capital, reminding the IOC’s members as he asked for their vote that, at age 89, “I am very near the end of my time.”

Samaranch ran the IOC for 21 years before Rogge took over in 2001.
Chicago had long been seen as a front-runner and got the highest possible level of support—from President Barack Obama himself. But he only spent a few hours in the Danish capital where the vote was held and left before the result was announced. Former IOC member Kai Holm said that the brevity of his appearance may have counted against him.

The short stopover was “too business-like,” Holm said. “It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect.”

Senior Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper surmised that Asian voters may have banded together for Tokyo in the first round, at Chicago’s expense.

“I’m shocked,” Gosper said. “The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote.”

He worried that the shock exit could do “untold damage” to the already testy relations between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee. They had recent flare-ups over revenue sharing and a USOC TV network.

“To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round is awful and totally undeserving,” Gosper said.

The European-dominated IOC’s last two experiences in the United States were marked by controversy: the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were sullied by a bribery scandal and logistical problems and a bombing hit the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Obama had held out the enticing prospect of a Chicago games helping to reconnect the United States with the world after the presidency of George W. Bush. He told the IOC earlier Friday that the “full force of the White House” would be applied so “visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people.”

Now, Chicago can only rue what might have been. And Obama’s gamble of expending his own political capital on the bid backfired.

The last U.S. city to bid for the Summer Games, New York, did scarcely better. It was ousted in the second round in the 2005 vote that gave the 2012 Games to London.

Tokyo did better than many expected by reaching the second round. It had offered reassurances of financial security, with $4 billion already banked for the games.

But the fact that the Olympics were held only last year in Asia, in Beijing, handicapped the Japanese capital’s bid.

Its plans for a highly compact games, sparing athletes tiring travel by holding all but the shooting within 5 miles of the city center, were technically appealing. But the bid failed to generate real enthusiasm, even in Japan. Tokyo had the lowest public backing in IOC polls.

Tokyo’s final presentation Friday to the IOC, while smooth and heartfelt, lacked the buzz that the Obamas and Rio generated. In short, Tokyo was simply overshadowed, failing to convince IOC members that it really wanted or needed the games.

AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson contributed to this report from London.

I guess that Obama isn't quite as convincing as he thinks he is in the public arena. The whole point of him going to Coppenhagen was to "close the deal" and bring the Olympics to Chicago. Speculation was that the decision had already been made in Chicago's favor, and Obama's presence was just supposed to be icing on the cake, but that speculation seems to have been off-base. But in any case, Obama went there to wrap the whole thing up in a nice little bow and bring it home.

If Obama lacks the ability to convince the IOC to accept Chicago as the site of the 2016 Olympics... which, let's face it, isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things... what makes anyone think that he can convince Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay down his nuclear ambitions? Or convince China to end their abuses of civil rights? Or convince the Taliban to lay down their arms and become allies of the USA? Or convince Kim Jong Il to release the next set of hostages his soldiers kidnap?

Frankly, the whole "messianic" facade is wearing thin. More and more often, "Yes We Can" is turning out to be "No He Can't". Obama ain't all that... even among the European elites he so admires, respects and wants to be like.

Elliot

ETWolverine · Oct 5, 2009, 07:37 AM

Y'know what's ironic?

Ironic is when the President of the USA goes around the world telling everyone how awful his country is for forcing its will upon others, how awful a place it is now that the rich aren't so rich and the poor are poorer, how terrible a place it is where we are rude and selfish and greedy... America is such an awful place, he says...

... and then he expects the IOC to grant the 2016 Olympics to this awful place.

After the world-wide sales pitch he's been making since last November in speech after speech and international appearance after international appearance, what exactly did he expect was going to happen?

THAT'S irony, excon.

Elliot

excon · Oct 5, 2009, 07:48 AM

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

Y'know what's ironic?

Hello again, El:

Yes, I understand the word irony. Like others in the dictionary, it's clear that you don't. You think politics is irony. But, nope. Irony is when you get caught engaging in behavior that you excoriated others from partaking in.

Just like I did here. I mentioned the irony, because you post here as though the recent past has slipped your mind. But, that's ok. I'm used to you trying to change what went on before. That's why I'm here.

You, like Rush Limbaugh, want Obama to fail. I guess you don't realize that thing about your NOSE being attached to your FACE.. But, again, I'm used to Republicans who have NO grip on reality.

I ask you again, Elliot, why do you HATE America sooooo much?

excon

ETWolverine · Oct 5, 2009, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

Yes, I understand the word irony. Like others in the dictionary, it's clear that you don't. You think politics is irony. But, nope. Irony is when you get caught engaging in behavior that you excoriated others from partaking in.

That's not irony, that's hipocracy. Which makes it clear that you DON'T understand the words.

Quote:

Just like I did here. I mentioned the irony, because you post here as though the recent past has slipped your mind. But, that's ok. I'm used to you trying to change what went on before. That's why I'm here.

Which posts would those be? Would they be all the OTHER posts where I excoriated Obama for his apologist, anti-American rhetoric?

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You, like Rush Limbaugh, want Obama to fail. I guess you don't realize that thing about your NOSE being attached to your FACE.. But, again, I'm used to Republicans who have NO grip on reality.

Yes, I want Obama to fail. And I want him to do so MISERABLY and COMPLETELY and in a BIG WAY.

Wanna know why?

Oh, I've explained it about a million times, but you just don't get it. So I'll try one more time... in the vain hope that this time you MIGHT pick up a new insight.

I want Obama to fail, because if he succeeds, WE fail. And I don't want to fail.

You see, if Obama succeeds, he will eliminate any incentive for the citizens of this country to work hard, develop new products and technologies and become better than they currently are. His policies reinforce mediocrity and failure at the expense of success. And if those policies succeed, this country will fall into a state of mediocrity and failure as a result.

His policies have BANKRUPTED the nation for the next two generations. His policies of "wealth redistribution", corporate takeovers, cap & trade, energy-dependence, no-growth, anti-capitalism are killing the economy and the ability of this nation to RECOVER from the recession... for generations to come.

I don't want that. And therefore I want Obama to FAIL. And I want him to fail so badly that anyone who comes along with similar policies for the next hundred years will have no chance whatsoever of being elected.

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I ask you again, Elliot, why do you HATE America sooooo much?

I LOVE America so much that I am hoping and praying that Obama fails, so that this country can return to the policies that have made it the greatest country in the world. If he succeeds WE fail. The only way for US to succeesd is for HIM to fail.

So, why do you hate this country so much that you would support Obama's policies and destroy it?

Elliot

speechlesstx · Oct 5, 2009, 10:24 AM

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

So what? Obama made his cameo appearance in Copenhagen, took the opportunity to meet with McChrystal who was in nearby London, and then, within a few hours, flew back to Chicago. It was a productive jaunt.

Productive? Oprah and the Obamas' "sacrifice" was productive? Turns out Obama's 25 minute meeting with McChrystal was to chastise him for showing leadership in asking for a decision from the Commander-in-chief. Perhaps he should be just as furious with Petraeus as well.

Wondergirl · Oct 5, 2009, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Productive? Oprah and the Obamas' "sacrifice" was productive? Turns out Obama's 25 minute meeting with McChrystal was to chastise him for showing leadership in asking for a decision from the Commander-in-chief. Perhaps he should be just as furious with Petraeus as well.

Who said "sacrifice"?????? That Telegraph article sure puts an uninformed spin on things! Talk about yellow journalism!

speechlesstx · Oct 5, 2009, 01:19 PM

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

Who said "sacrifice"??????

Michelle Obama said it was a "sacrifice" to make the trip to pitch the Olympics.

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That Telegraph article sure puts an uninformed spin on things! Talk about yellow journalism!

Yellow journalism? Uninformed? Which part, the part where national security adviser Gen Jim Jones was quoted on CNN or where he was quoted on CBS?

paraclete · Oct 5, 2009, 02:18 PM

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

Do you think that the Pols, the Cheks, and the Hondurans, all of whom have been thrown under the bus in recent weeks, are feeling friendly towards the USA today? Do you think that French PM Sarkozy is feeling friendly towards the USA as Obama undermines him? Do you think that Gordon Brown is feeling particularly friendly toward the USA at the moment after being deliberately snubbed by Obama on at least 4 occassions? Is IRAN being friendly toward the USA? How about North Korea and China?

In fact, can you name a single country in the entire world that is more friendly toward the USA today than it was under Bush? How is that country demonstrating that friendliness?

Elliot

Yep that Bush was a fairly friendly guy, no doubt about it. One summer does not a swallow make and Obama has had just one summer. Obama obviously chooses his friends carefully, look how chummy he has been with the Russian President and he positively swooned for the king of Saudi Arabia