Flame out for Chicago in bidding for 2016 Olympics

Rio de Janeiro captures sporting prize

By Kathy Bergen and Philip Hersh - Tribune reporters

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COPENHAGEN — It was the kind of stinging defeat Chicago sports fans know all too well.Mayor Richard Daley took one grand shot at landing the Olympics, devoting more than three years to an effort that involved thousands of volunteers and more than $72 million in donations, but in the end Chicago was done in by a combination of Rio de Janeiro’s more compelling story line and the quirky politics of Olympic voting. 

Despite an appearance by President Barack Obama at the final presentations Friday, Chicago’s candidacy landed with a thud. The city was ousted in the first round of voting for the 2016 Games, rejected before the mayor’s car could even arrive back at the convention center to witness the drama of the International Olympic Committee vote. He had the car turned around and headed straight to a suddenly deflated Chicago backers’ party.

Back in Chicago, the celebration also ended practically as quickly as it began. Would-be revelers arrived at Daley Center and other locations expecting a tense morning culminating in a victory announcement just before noon locally. Instead, Chicago was out of the running by about 10:15 a.m.

Chicago’s main pitch was to put on games along the spectacular backdrop of Lake Michigan. That turned out to be no match for Rio, not because the beach at Ipanema outshines Oak Street, but because of a more powerful geographic symbolism. Time and time again in this intense contest, Rio de Janeiro hammered away at the fact that an organization devoted to international understanding through sport had never deigned to give the games to South America.

Rio’s argument won the day, and the games, over Madrid in the third and final round of voting, 66-32. Chicago got the least votes in round one and was eliminated, followed out the door by Tokyo in round two.

“I wouldn’t say it was a negative vote (against Chicago) as much as it was a positive vote for Brazil and the idea of having games in the southern hemisphere,” said Richard Carrion, an International Olympic Committee member from Puerto Rico. “I analyze it more that Brazil had a better idea.”

For Chicago, this is the end of the road for this particular pursuit, at least in the short term. Daley ruled out a bid for 2020, saying it was highly unlikely the IOC would return to the Americas so quickly.

About three hours after Chicago was eliminated, Daley made his first public statement, saying he was disappointed, “but you go on with your life.”

IOC politics appeared to play a major role in explaining how Chicago, which many saw as the favorite, was eliminated so quickly. The first round of voting is always the most unpredictable, with regional allies often promising to back friends, or conspiring to gang up on a specific challenger.

In this case, friends of Rio may have formed alliances to quickly eliminate Chicago, its most significant threat, said Richard Pound, an IOC member from Canada.

“That’s sport politics, not anything else,” he said, adding that the Europeans and the Asians are much better at this maneuvering than are North Americans. “We kind of think if you’ve got the best bid, the world will recognize that, and these decisions are made solely on the merits of the bid. Well, not solely.”

Another factor in Chicago’s vote failure appeared to be the sometimes fractious relationship between the United States Olympic Committee and the IOC. The two sides have sparred over issues such as TV contract revenue, potentially alienating some IOC members.

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IOC members: Don’t blame it on Chicago

By Philip Hersh

Don’t blame it on Chicago.

That’s the take from several members of the International Olympic Committee interviewed after the IOC booted Chicago after the first round of voting.

Several said the quality of Rio de Janeiro’s winning bid was better. And at least one IOC member blamed the Olympic movement in the United States.

“I think Chicago had a good bid and good people,” said Switzerland’s Denis Oswald, a frequent critic of the United States Olympic Committee and a key figure in revenue-sharing battles with the group.

“The kind of instability shown by USOC in recent months has not helped. We had been dealing with some people, and suddenly we heard one has disappeared and one was nearly fired, and you had to start with totally new people. It’s also a human relationship. It’s always easier to deal with people you know and have full confidence (in).”

He said 10 to 15 IOC members had discussed the revenue-sharing friction with him, as well as plans for an Olympic TV network in the United States that angered the IOC.

“The colleagues who asked me, I said I would like you to forget about this,” Oswald said.  “We will try to find a solution, and we should judge Chicago based on the quality of its bid. But everyone has a different approach, and I cannot say this has not played a role for a number of people.”

So it was a defeat for the USOC?

“That’s my impression, yes,” Oswald said.

Another IOC member, Canada’s Richard Pound, disagreed.

“I don’t know that it says anything to them (the United States and the USOC),” Pound said. “When you look at the margin, it was clear there was an effort to make sure Rio got this, and the only meaningful threat to Rio would have been Chicago. So all the friends of Rio were urged to try and make sure Chicago didn’t get into that position.

“I think there were a lot of people saying, ‘If we don’t get it, we’ll support you but we’ve got to stop Chicago.’  And that’s sport politics, not anything else.  It’s election management. The Europeans and the Asians are much better at this (in the IOC) than we are. They are better at managing elections and thinking strategically. We kind of think if you’ve got the best bid, the world will recognize that, and these decisions are made solely on the merits of the bid. Well, not solely.”

Still, several IOC members expressed surprise at Chicago’s first-round exit.

Said Norway’s Gerhard Heiberg: “This was, I can’t say a wrong decision, but it was not a right decision.”

“Going out in first round, that was just an accident,” said Switzerland’s Rene Fasel. “I expected to have a different vote in the end. If Chicago is against Rio, it will be much closer.”

None were more shocked than IOC member Anita DeFrantz from the United States. “Shock would be a pleasant word,” she said.

But just as many people had praise for Rio de Janeiro’s bid and the fact that it came from South America, which had never hosted an Olympics.

Here’s how Oswald described it: “There was such a strong aspiration to go to new horizons.”

“It’s an important message to the rest of the world that it’s possible to host the Olympic games,” added Namibia’s Frankie Fredericks.

“They (Rio) had a message,” Pound said. “They stayed on it. They managed to divert attention from all the risk areas they had, as did everybody else. You have got to admire the delivery of that result. I’m sure that a lot of the political maneuvering was based on the fact that (President Barack) Obama was probably going to come and was coming, so they said we’ve got to keep Chicago out of play, or we’re all dead.

“Can you imagine if he hadn’t come and this result had occurred? I think he did the right thing, and I think he made a lot of friends here, got a lot of respect.  It was the time for Rio.  It’s like when political change comes along.  People want change. It was South America’s time.”

“This was not a vote against any city, this was a vote in favor of Rio de Janeiro,” said Thomas Bach of Germany.

But Chicago losing in the first round?

“I also was surprised,” he said. “This vote was not against anybody, it was in favor of Rio and universality.”

“Good for Rio, very disappointing for Chicago,” said Kevan Gosper of Australia.  “They deserved better.”

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Be proud, Chicago

Tribune Staff Reporter

So that’s all there is.

Chicago in 2016 will watch the Summer Olympic Games on television along with the most of the world.

Chicago lost. We don’t like losing. We don’t like being embarrassed either, which, let’s admit, was the near-universal reaction to being knocked out in the first round of voting by the International Olympic Committee.

But we’ll be fine.

Bidding for an Olympiad forced Chicago, its leaders and its citizens, to focus on what works and what doesn’t. It made all of us think to the future how this city should capitalize on its assets: the lakefront, the neighborhoods, the parks–and sports and kids. This process also energized the concept of public/private partnerships here.

That work won’t go to waste. There will be no Olympic Village on the site of Michael Reese Hospital. But the city owns that land now and Mayor Richard Daley has promised to develop it into a new neighborhood anyway. Do that, Chicago–and preserve Reese’s landmark Walter Gropius buildings.

A Chicago Olympics would have spotlighted the city’s single greatest physical asset–that glorious lakefront. It was to be the centerpiece of the games. It’s still the centerpiece of Chicago. Take it to the next level, Chicago. Complete the public access where it doesn’t exist. Build the pedestrian walkways that would have anchored the village to the lake. The lakefront is the city’s crown jewel. Polish it. ƒp This bid turned a spotlight on the city’s transportation infrastructure, a weak point. The region’s rails and roads need capital investment to handle the demands of a growing metropolis. Invest the money, Chicago, Olympics or no.

That includes finishing the unfinished part of the O’Hare International Airport expansion: Build a western access road; just about every local transportation study for decades has listed that as a priority to ease the bottleneck at the eastern entrance to the airport. Fixing transportation also includes easing Chicago’s freight rail gridlock. And it includes making the city’s rapid transit system work better and more efficiently.

The greatest legacy of this bid could have been as simple and profound as this: kids and sports. An Olympiad held the potential to nudge them off the couch, away from junk food, TV and video games, the gangs and their violence. Chicago founded World Sport Chicago to boost the bid, but it can and should be a powerful force in the years ahead to promote active, healthy lifestyles.

Chicago is an attractive destination for talented, educated young people. Its location makes it a hub, as accessible to Mexico City and Mumbai as to Milwaukee. But Chicago won’t reach its potential unless it fosters a climate more conducive to business investment and entrepreneurial development. A new scheme for taxing and public spending would greatly help protect Chicago from an erosion of employers. Jobs, jobs and more jobs will be the city’s salvation.

Businesses that locate and grow here pay taxes and all those newly employed people pay taxes, too.

Olympiad or no, Chicago needs to become a perpetual mecca for small businesses in particular. Their energetic potential is explosive. Make it so easy and welcoming, Chicago, for them to start up here that they can’t imagine going elsewhere. This means shifting a mind set that currently sees them as a source of fees, fines and other revenues, only secondly of growth and opportunity.

This city has reinvented itself before, without the provocation of an Olympiad.

Chicago was a “City on the brink” in 1981 when the Tribune series with that title looked at this metropolis and its bleak post-industrial prospects. The world was changing; grit and brawn didn’t matter so much anymore. The harsh competition of globalization was dawning; structural decline was palpable in cities ill-equipped for this rigorous economic game. By the mid-’80s, Chicago’s ugly racial politics and its City Council wars made the city a national embarrassment, famously jabbed by The Wall Street Journal as “Beirut on the lake.” All arrows pointed south except the jobless rate. That soared.

Why didn’t Chicago plummet like so many heartland cities in what the Tribune series called “an arc of economic crisis”? Partly because of an innate spirit that created a city out of a swampy onion patch–and then improbably promised to host the world at a glittering gala just 22 years after the Great Fire of 1871. Hence the wildly successful Columbian Exposition.

Partly, too, because of can-do hucksterism: See a problem. Solve a problem. Make a buck.

And partly because of leadership–political, civic, business, cultural. At critical moments, powerful Chicagoans have reached high. Why not? What did they have to lose?

Pinched vision isn’t this city’s civic heritage–from Montgomery Ward’s sacred lakefront park to Daniel H. Burnham’s “Make no little plans” to Mayor Daley’s crowd-pleasing Millennium Park.

Chicagoans love their city but see its warts every day. We know its challenges and its weaknesses. And we can’t forget how this steel and stone metropolis, rising like a castle from the flat expanse of the lake’s broad basin, astonishes newcomers. Its architecture, museums, parks, flowers are always a revelation, as is the richness of its neighborhoods.

Chicago is a world-class city. The Olympics wouldn’t have changed that. But the games would have showcased this city for the world in a way no other event could. Now it’s up to Chicago, its leaders, citizens and businesses to achieve that at a time when competition for jobs, brains, talent and investment is as likely to come from New Delhi as New York.

Some Chicagoans are celebrating today because the XXXI Olympiad won’t disrupt their summer of 2016; many others are disappointed. It would have been a grand party in our own front yard. But it wasn’t to be.

It’s time to get back to what we do best: See a problem. Solve a problem. Make a buck.

Be proud, Chicago. You went for gold.

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2016 Olympics: Cliffhanger in Copenhagen fills air with electric anticipation

Bid teams are nervous about close vote, and Chicago’s star, Oprah Winfrey, creates a stir wherever she goes

By Kathy Bergen and Philip Hersh Tribune reporters

COPENHAGEN – — Eight-hundred-year-old Copenhagen, a former fishing colony that is now a blend of the fine and the funky, the historic and the sleekly modern, is a city on edge.

And the war of nerves is most evident among an unusual group of visitors: the 2016 Olympic bid teams from Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo, and their supporters, who are sweating out a vote Friday by the International Olympic Committee.

With this being the most evenly matched four-way Olympic bid race in recent memory, even those used to high tension are feeling the strain.

“I’m a little anxious,” Olympian basketball player and former NBA star David Robinson, a Chicago supporter, admitted at a bid backers cocktail party held just as the IOC was officially opening its annual meeting. “A lot of people have put in a ton of time in the last three years and a lot is riding on it for the city.”

Contributing to the war of nerves is the difficulty in predicting an outcome, not just because each candidate city has a strong bid, but because the IOC is notoriously hard to read and the elimination rounds of voting result in quickly shifting alliances as cities are dropped.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero tempered his optimism Thursday morning with recollections of the vote for the 2012 Summer Games, when Madrid was the top vote-getter in the second round of voting in Singapore, only to ultimately wind up third. London squeaked past Paris, the favorite to win those games.

“When that concluded, I took a reflection,” Zapatero said. “The thing is, with this type of election, there are different faces on it as bids are eliminated. It’s very hard to predict who will win the final vote.”

And it is hard to steer clear of the electric undercurrents in town. With sirens blaring and blue lights flashing, police cars have been whisking heads of state around town. Security guards at posh hotels have kept entrances cordoned off when VIPs were expected.

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Obama lobbies IOC to pick Chicago for 2016

President, first lady make presentations to IOC on Friday

COPENHAGEN – In a hometown pitch for the world’s biggest sporting event, President Barack Obama lobbied Olympic leaders to give the 2016 Summer Games to Chicago, saying the U.S. “is ready and eager to assume that sacred trust.”

The president and his wife, fellow Chicagoan Michelle Obama, put their capital behind an enormous campaign to win the Olympics bid. Never before had a U.S. president made such an in-person appeal.

“I urge you to choose Chicago,” Obama told members of the International Olympic Committee.

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“And if you do — if we walk this path together — then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud,” the president said.

Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo have been making their cases to the IOC for more than a year, but many IOC members were believed to be undecided about which city they would vote for Friday. Some said they might not decide until after the cities made their final presentations in Copenhagen.

Both Obamas spoke on deeply personal terms about Chicago, the city at the center of the world’s spotlight so many times, including in November when Barack Obama won the White House and stood proudly with his family.

The president described Chicago as a place of diversity and warmth.

“Chicago is a place where we strive to celebrate what makes us different just as we celebrate what we have in common,” he said. “It’s a place where our unity is on colorful display … It’s a city that works from its first World’s Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties, we know how to put on big events.”

For all the anticipation surrounding Obama’s appearance in Copenhagen, his arrival at the IOC meeting was decidedly subdued.

The 100-plus committee members, who had already been warned not show bias during the presentations, sat silently as the Obamas walked into the Bella Center with the rest of 12-member Chicago delegation.

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Obama: ‘Most American of American cities’

President Obama described himself as a “passionate supporter” of the Games and as “a proud Chicagoan.”

He said he looked forward to welcoming the world to the shores of Lake Michigan and America in 2016. “America is ready and eager,” he said.

He described his own association with and love for the city, noting it was the place where he met his wife. He cited Chicago’s ethnic diversity with “a rich tapestry of neighborhoods.”

Chicago is the “most American of American cities,” with more than 130 nations represented among its population, he said.

He harkened to his own background, how his family moved around a lot, how he lived without roots in Hawaii and Indonesia, but found a true home in Chicago 25 years ago.

“I came to Chicago, and on Chicago’s streets I worked along side men and women who were black and white, Latino and Asian. People in every class and nationality and religion,” he said.

He concluded by saying Chicago would make the IOC proud.

2:29 a.m. Michelle Obama: ‘Choose Chicago, choose America’

Michelle Obama, appearing slightly nervous at the outset, made an intensely personal presentation, talking about how the Olympics inspired her as a young girl and would do the same for the present generation of children.

She said the Games would be used “to bring us together” and “change lives all over the world.”

She said the Olympics “would light up lives across the world.”

“I was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, not  far from where the Games will open and close… Sports are what brought a community together,” she said.

“We picked sides not on who you were, but what you could bring to the game.”

Sports, she said, is what she shared with her father.

‘I’m asking you to choose Chicago. I’m asking you to choose America,” she said.

2:21 a.m. Chicago called a good place for athletes

Brian Clay, the 2008 decathlon champion, and Linda Mastandrea, director of Paaralympic Sport and Accessibility for the city’s 2016 bid, said the city will be a good place for athletes to compete.

The cited the beauty of the city’s parks and its lakefront.

The city’s Olympic Village would put 90 percent of the athletes within 15 minutes of their venues, with spacious rooms and a private beach, Mastrandrea said.

–Kathy Bergen

2:15 a.m. More virtues: Corporate connections, shopping

Bid team leader Patrick Ryan stressed the city’s economic strength, noting the Midwest is home to hundreds of major corporations. The city, he said, will provide “fresh territory for expansion of sponsorships.”

He said the city’s shopping rivaled that of London and New York, and called Chicago “a safe city.”

“For the next seven years, we will focus exclusively on being your committed partners,” he said. “If so honored, we will begin tomorrow.”

–Kathy Bergen

2:07 a.m. Daley: ‘Chicago will deliver’

Mayor Daley was third up.

“Chicago will deliver,” he promised, “because in Chicago we just don’t talk about what we will do, we do it.”

He said the city’s bid had a “a full government guarantee with the enthusiastic appeal of the city’s leaders.”

“If you award us the Games, we will be your best partners,” he pledged.

At the beginning of his presentation, he cited Chicago’s connection to the Olympics through two of its premier athletes, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalf, who competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

He noted they competed on behalf of a nation that would not give them, as African-Americans, basic rights. “Why? Because the Olympic Games represent something bigger,” he said.

--Kathy Bergen

1:55 a.m. Presentation begins with ‘Sweet Home Chicago’

Chicago has begun its presentation to the International Olympic Committee with a brief introduction by United States Olympic Committee member Anita DeFrantz and a video of the city to the strains of “Sweet Home Chicago.”

She was followed by Larry Probst, chairman of the USOC, who promised the city would “fulfill every obligation” to get the Olympics.

12:50 a.m. Obama arrives in Copenhagen

President Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen this morning to help in Chicago’s final push for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Air Force One touched down at 12:50 a.m. Chicago time, 7:50 a.m. Copenhagen time. He will spend less than five hours on the ground.

He was greeted by a phalynx of Danish dignitaries. His motorcade left the airport 19 minutes later.

Later today, the IOC will choose among Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid. That decision is scheduled to be announced shortly before noon Chicago time. There could be as many as three rounds of voting. After each round, assuming no city reaches a majority, the lowest vote-getter will be eliminated.

The city’s presentation to the IOC, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, is scheduled to begin at 1:45 a.m. Chicago is up first. It will have 45 minutes to make its case, with another 15 minutes for questions and answers. The president will answer questions.

Early handicapping has Rio has a slight favorite over Chicago. South America has never hosted an Olympics.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was a late add-on to the traveling team accompanying Obama on Air Force One. Also aboard were two Cabinet members from Illinois, Secretary of Transporation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Durbin said White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was reluctant for the president to make the trip. Emanuel had told Durbin that Obama’s busy schedule, coupled with the fact that health care legislation is unresolved, made him skeptical about the Copenhagen venture.

The president joins his wife, Mayor Richard Daley, Oprah Winfrey and the remainder of Chicago’s bid team in Copenhagen to make Chicago’s case.

For earlier coverage on the Copenhagen countdown CLICK HERE.

Psychics weigh in on Chicago’s chances HERE.

Winfrey said the IOC vote could produce “a decision that could be a landmark in Chicago history.”

The president will speak Friday on behalf of Chicago’s bid and take questions from IOC members during the 15-minute question period after the 45-minute prepared presentation.

“He and the First Lady will both participate in the question and answer session,” Presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett said in a Wednesday interview with the Tribune and four other media outlets — one from Italy, one from Japan, one from Great Britain and another from the United States.

–Peter Nicholas, Jeff Finkelman

[ Updates from the Chicago Tribune ]

Decision day at last

BY LISA DONOVAN Staff Reporter

COPENHAGEN — That finish line is coming up fast.

Today’s the day Chicago learns whether it takes home Olympic gold … or sits as an also-ran in the race to host the 2016 Summer Games.

Uniforms pressed? Check. Oprah in town? Check. President Obama? Check.

It will all come to a head at 11:57 a.m., Chicago time, when the city that has won the right to host the 2016 Olympics will be announced in a dramatic ceremony.

Mayor Daley’s Olympic bid team — and competitors from Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo — spent the day before the final vote furiously lobbying the International Olympic Committee members on the eve of their vote for the 2016 Games.

The star power remained high — even before President Obama got on a plane Thursday night en route to Copenhagen.

Want a picture with Oprah? She was holding court in a restaurant. Interested in talking to a Dream Teamer or a Perfect 10? David Robinson and Nadia Comaneci roamed the halls of their Copenhagen hotel. How about a meeting with the first lady? She was listening.

Michelle Obama has been on a marathon campaign to lobby as many of the 100-plus members of the IOC as possible. Thursday, she took a break from her hotel suite meetings with IOC members to attend the opening ceremony at Copenhagen’s dazzling opera house. Wearing a sleeveless, apricot-colored dress, she greeted a steady stream of members and other VIPs.

She also took time to have lunch with the queen of Denmark.

Since her arrival Wednesday, Mrs. Obama has been meeting with the IOC voters — perhaps dozens — in a suite at the Marriott, the official IOC hotel, where she can sit and talk.

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US first lady charms Aussie IOC members

Australian IOC members admit being greatly impressed by US first lady Michelle Obama as she conducts last-minute lobbying for hometown Chicago to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

John Coates, Kevan Gosper and Phil Coles all had meetings with Mrs Obama in her Marriott Hotel suite in Copenhagen as she greeted a stream of IOC members who must decide in a few hours time between Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio.

“You can’t help being swept away by her charm,” said Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, after his 20 minute meeting.

“She is obviously very proud of her city and its people and believes Chicago can stage a spectacular Olympic Games”.

Coates presented Mrs Obama with two Boxing Kangaroo soft toys for her daughters Malia Anne, 10, and Sasha, 7.

“The first lady stressed the importance of engaging in sport internationally.

“She emphasised the close friendship she and her husband share with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein.

Gosper was also highly impressed.

“She is an astonishing lady,” he said.

President Barack Obama was due in Copenhagen a few hours before the four bid cities present their final pitch to the 105 IOC members.

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Barack Obama stardust lifts Chicago’s chances but vote will go the wire

Barack Obama will lobby hard for his former city to be awarded the 2016 Olympics but nothing can be taken for granted

Pele, right, meets the Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos as lobbying intensifies ahead of the 2016 Olympic vote

It has been no ordinary week in the Danish capital, with the charged atmosphere ahead of last night’s IOC Congress opening gala more akin to a high level political summit than a gathering to decide the destination of the world’s biggest sporting event.

Amid the stunts, the heavy security, the last-minute press conferences and the frantic wooing of the 104 voting members of the 106 International Olympic Committee officials who will decide their fate, the one name on everyone’s lips was that of the man not due to arrive in Copenhagen until this morning.

After travelling overnight, Barack Obama will today step straight from Air Force One into the cavernous Bella Centre conference hall to deliver Chicago’s pitch and attempt to bring the Olympics back to the US for the first time since the underwhelming and chaotic Atlanta Games of 1996. As he does so, he will reconfirm the rebirth of the Olympics over the past three decades as an economic and cultural force.

Despite the scrutiny, the threat of it all going wrong, the fact that no city bar Barcelona has created a lasting legacy and the impact of a global recession, the battle to stage the Games is more intense than ever.

With the IOC’s evaluation commission failing to declare a clear leader, and up to half of all the IOC members still believed to be undecided going into the final hours according to some, much will depend on the final push.

Obama’s late, perfectly timed decision to attend the vote has robbed Rio’s attempt to make Olympic history by bringing the Games to South America for the first time of crucial momentum. But there may yet be a twist in the tale.

Other bidders yesterday tried, in vain, to deflect attention from the arrival of the US president. Shintaro Ishihara, the president of the Tokyo 2016 bid committee, urged IOC members to judge the bids on their technical merits and not on their presentation skills.

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Obama Tied to Olympics, Win or Lose

By KENNETH P. VOGEL

President Obama’s hometown allies have brought Chicago to the brink of landing the 2016 Olympic Games, but after Obama makes the city’s case before the International Olympic Committee Friday morning in Copenhagen, the president’s own legacy will become inextricably intertwined with the fate of Chicago’s bid.

History has shown that’s not always a good thing.

Much has been made of the potential international embarrassment and Republican attacks Obama might endure if the IOC rejects his pitch. Yet, any such backlash would likely have limited shelf-life, but a successful outcome in Copenhagen could arm opponents with ammunition for more than six years, particularly if preparations for the Chicago Games were beset by the delays, cost-over-runs and controversies that have plagued Olympics past.

Add the reputation for political corruption in Chicago and Illinois, and you’ve got the basis for a joke making the rounds in Copenhagen, where the IOC also will vote on whether to include rugby and golf in the 2016 Olympics.

“If they’re going to add a new sport for the Chicago Olympics, corruption would be great one – they’re really good at that,” said David Wallechinsky, vice president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, which is meeting in Copenhagen.

In all seriousness, Wallechinsky said, “I would assume that if Chicago gets the games, Obama would say ‘great,’ and then move on and try to stay clear of it for 6 years. I would, if I were him.”

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