Just gone official. Good for them.
(Why do I have formerly jaded Oly-attending media members will be there?)
Pretty astonishing there’s never been an Olympic Games in South America to this point. That may have been the final, driving force in the decision. (At least I hope it was.)
(Somehow IOC was able to avoid the rapturous allure of Chicago celebrity)
I think it’s great Rio got The Games. It’s wonderful, in all seriousness, to see them get something you know will hugely benefit the city. The IOC, to its credit, made the right call. But the slap at the U.S. (and the Obamas) was uncalled for.
It’s very clear now that President Obama should’ve never gone to Copenhagen unless he’d planned to stay a couple days. It’s one thing for the “King” of Spain to stay for a couple days, it’s another for the most powerful man in the world to do so. He shouldn’t have gone either way.
More interesting in the decision is the beatdown the IOC gave Chicago and the United States - despite the fact that U.S. television rights essentially fund 80% of the entire endeavor.
Today was a great example of how the IOC truly operates. While I laud the decision to select Rio to host The Games, it’s clear IOC members went with Madrid over Chicago and Tokyo merely because of the personal appeal from former longtime IOC President Juan Samaranch. (Who I know will be everyone’s first pick overall in next year’s office deadpool.)
1:06 pm on October 2nd, 2009
Rio is soooooooooo much better than dirty cold Chicago. Rio will rock and it will be dancing in the street and on that beatiful beach. I mean come on Rio and it’s beaty and beaches and women or Chicago with it dirty lake nasty people. No contest!!!!!!!
1:28 pm on October 2nd, 2009
Rio is “cleaner” than Chicago? Best you can do?
1:45 pm on October 2nd, 2009
” Many of the more than one million slum dwellers are caught in the middle of a brutal war between drug traffickers who rule the “favela” with impunity and a police force that tends to shoot first and ask questions later.
The police, whose tactics are regularly condemned by human rights groups, shoot dead an average of about three people a day, often young, black youths from favelas, who are uniformly classified as “resisting arrest”.”
Yes, Rio, so much better.
1:48 pm on October 2nd, 2009
Uh, won’t it be winter there in August 2016???? I’m so confused……
2:03 pm on October 2nd, 2009
Dammit! The worst part is we need to discuss politics in relation to sports. Here’s the deal… Pres. Obama has been running around telling anyone who will listen that “America is no better than any other country.” And then he goes over there and tries to tell them otherwise. Ridiculous. “No! Wait! I’m not saying America is better than other countries… I’m saying Chicago is! Cause… you know… I’m from there and junk!”
2:04 pm on October 2nd, 2009
Rio is the top-ranked city in the world for “violent international deaths,” with just under five thousand murders last year, at least half of which were drug-gang related. Two decades after the collapse of military rule, the region’s Marxist guerrillas have disappeared, only to be replaced by violent drug mafias. The politician and former guerrilla Alfredo Sirkis likens the spread of Rio’s gang culture to Al Qaeda’s appeal to disenfranchised youths in Muslim societies.
2:17 pm on October 2nd, 2009
If I had to risk my life, I’d pick Rio too . Hot women in thongs vs teeth missing people. umm
6:28 pm on October 2nd, 2009
What “slap” at the U.S.? Or the Obamas? Chicago is in no way equipped to adequately host an Olympics games, and that’s why it finished 4th out of 4. It is not a “slap” to acknowledge this.
And Obama, being a lawyer, should have heeded the first thing he was taught in law school: Never, ever ask a question to which you do not know the answer in advance.
He should never have made that trip unless he had been assured in advance that Chicago would win. It was simply an idiotic move by a naive narcissist of a President.
10:31 pm on October 2nd, 2009
The IOC did Chicago, and this country a favor by not having the games here. Let some other country have the headaches that go along with that event. This country is loosing so much $$ due to the current administration’s spending spree that we’ll be nothing but a slum country in 5-10 years at the rate were going. Good move on MJ’’s part for not being apart of that fiasco.
11:31 am on October 3rd, 2009
If we didn’t have so damn many drug addictes in Chicago and the other slum cities in the world there wouldn’t be nearly much killing. The entire world knows it’s the Americans wthat keep the drugs running. But we do love thngs and I agree I’d rather risk my life to see the beach and women and games in Rio than fight in the streets of Chicago. PLus the government in Rio will shot the drug dealers and crooks dead and not worry about the Civil Liberies sueing them. Better there than here . . They shhot these people, kids “young blacks” as you say because it’s the damn blacks in So. Am and the USA that are selling this shit and distroying the country. All over the world people know it’s the USA that buys most of the drugs. Wake up and blame your brothers’
11:43 am on October 3rd, 2009
Well there will be MEN in little bikini swim suits too!! And Rio is so beautiful with the beachs and mountains and the sexy Latins. Compare that to toothless street people and a lake you can alk kon, almost, rusty old car complanies and cold winds and political people like BP around. Crime is just as bad and in this country they let them go. In So. Am they don’t!! God!!! What has Chicago have? Dirty lake water, ugly fat people and a government that is as corrupt as that in any in So. American country. Just look at what and who BO has on his staff as ZARS!!! And a Nancy P telling him what to do. She is mentally ill! No Rio was a much better choice if just for the weather. Think about it, even in the summer Chicago has icy rain and fog cold ater and bad weather. 75% of the year no sun and wind. Rio=Sun, beach, arm water and little sports bathing suits ladies. Can’t wait for 2016. BO is just mad becasue he wanted the political bennies that came with winning. He is the dumnest Pres. we have ever had and he and his Dem. ass wipes are destroying the country. Can’t wait to vote again!