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.”
Rio de Janeiro presented their 2016 Olympic bid to the IOC third, at 12:05 PM local time in Copenhagen. A summary follows.
Asked if Rio would seek the 2020 Games in the event of losing out on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members’ vote, he responded: “I’m not regarding the idea that we will be defeated.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Rio’s citizens are anxiously awaiting Friday’s vote on the 2016 Olympics host, hoping a victory will transform the city.
(Bloomberg) — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is applying his strategy of promoting ties among Southern Hemisphere countries to the quest for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.
COPENHAGEN — Brazil’s leader is borrowing President Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” catchphrase to plug Rio de Janeiro’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
COPENHAGEN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) — Heads of government or state from the countries of candidate cities have begun arriving in Copenhagen to lobby for the bid of their cities for hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. 
COPENHAGEN (AP) — Brazil’s aggressive marketing industry will ensure that a potential 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro would not be overshadowed by the country’s hosting the World Cup two years earlier, a Rio spokesman said Wednesday.
COPENHAGEN – Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympic bid team hit the ground running here Tuesday, making a stout case for the Games to be awarded to South America for the very first time and ruffling rival Chicago’s feathers in the process.
