2009-10-02
President Obama and Mayor Daley Lose Embarrassing First Round Loss in Bid for 2016 Olympics
I got a text message from my cousin that read, "Cant help but feel ioc is anti American," after the International Olympic Committee announced Chicago had been voted out in the first round with only 18 votes. So what happened? Well, Chicago is well known for its brutal political games, so it's a bit ironic that it was it was brutal political games that killed humiliated Chicago in the first round. Rio had a large portion of their voters give their first round votes to Tokyo. This prevented Tokyo from being eliminated in the first round of voting by giving them more votes than Chicago, which was most people's "2nd Choice" after Tokyo and Madrid. Had Chicago survived the first round, they likely would have won the bid.
Now, people are going attack Mayor Daley and President Obama because of the loss. They shouldn't be. They did everything you're supposed to do and played the game as it's supposed to be played. Unfortunately, Rio changed the game on them and brought raw, unadulterated politics to the Olympic games. If anybody should be embarrassed, it should be Brazil. They've all but endorsed a new wave of corruption and politics being inserted into the Olympic games.
ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski put it best when he wrote:
Whatever. If Chicago can survive Al Capone, the Black Sox, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Cade McNown at quarterback, The Bartman Game and Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech, it can survive anything, including a snub from the predominantly Euroweenie IOC. Chicago was a great city before the vote; it remains so after the vote.
Chicago is still the greatest city in the world and neither the IOC or Rio can take that away.
Archived Comments
Wickle
"Chicago is still the greatest city in the world and neither the IOC or Rio can take that away."
Nah, I'm more a fan of Charlotte. But that really has nothing to do with this post, does it?
Kevin Tracy
Haha, check out the next post. Women in Charlotte don't come up with awesome inventions like they do in Chicago!
Travis Gearhart
For the record, I hate Chicago. Always have, always will, for MANY reasons, most notably their over priced parking and cigarette taxes/policies. Booo Chicago.
Kevin Tracy
So when you quit smoking in however many years you said you were going to quit smoking in, you're going to love Chicago? Parking is an issue in every major city. Trust me, at least you can FIND parking in Chicago. There's hardly any in DC, and what little there is happens to be reserved for staffers, government employees, and police. And don't even get me started on San Francisco and Philadelphia.
When you go into a major city, you need to take public transportation or a taxi in and out of the city.
Travis Gearhart
Even when/if I quit smoking, I'll still dislike Chicago, because I still disagree with the mindset of sin taxes being used as behavioural control. Plus, I'm not much of a "city" guy anyways. I prefer small town/country living. Less people, less traffic, less annoyances :)
