A Barack Obama impersonator poses next to a cardboard cutout image of Michelle Obama as Rio residents celebrate the nomination to host the 2016 Olympic Games at the Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Oct. 2, 2009. (AP)
The news is in — Chicago is out. And Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Summer Olympics, beating out Chicago, Tokyo, and Madrid in the International Olympic Committee’s vote today in Copenhagen. Chicago received just 18 of 94 votes in the first round, making the early loss an especially hard blow to the United States and President Obama, who had flown to Denmark to join the First Lady and address the IOC.
Chicago’s Daley Plaza, where a large crowd had gathered to watch the results, was reportedly so silent you could hear a pin drop when the windy city lost.
On Thursday, we looked at the Olympic bids as they came down to the wire, with Sports Illustrated’s Brian Cazeneuve, Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington, and Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Sotero, who was Washington correspondent for one of Brazil’s leading newspapers for 17 years, made a strong case for why Brazil deserves to host the games:
Nothing against Chicago. It’s a great city. Nothing against Michelle and Barack Obama. Most people love them in Brazil. Just the fact that the world is a little bit bigger than the United States. There are changing, momentous changes in the world. Brazil is one of the new players in the world. Brazil is a great country, a welcoming people. Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful cities on earth, and it’s time that the Olympic Games move somewhere else. It would just simply not be reasonable, it doesn’t make sense, to have it once again in the United States. The United States will have plenty of opportunities to host the games. But I think Brazilians are really ready to welcome the re-elected President Obama to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to help us open the Olympic Games there.
You can listen to the full conversation here. It’s a good one.
