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Vagaries of Olympic vote trump Obamas' presence for Chicago
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In a stunner few expected, Chicago was eliminated on the first ballot in voting for 2016 Olympic Summer Games host, along with Tokyo. Rio, which went into the International Olympic Committee vote in Copenhagen as the presumed favorite along with Chicago, advanced to the final round with Madrid.
The shocking defeat came despite President Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveling to Copenhagen to woo IOC members, the first time a sitting president from the U.S. has attended an Olympic host city vote. The Obamas are from Chicago, and Michelle Obama's heartwarming speech, where she spoke of her deceased father's pride for the city and their Olympic bid efforts, was a moving one. President Obama seemed to send the right message about his adopted hometown in the heartland of America, and the legacy it would leave.
The vote was the worst-case scenario, one that bid committee chairman Pat Ryan feared. Because of how the voting is conducted, the first round is a dangerous one because the city with the least votes is eliminated. (We have yet to see numbers.) Favorites going into the process have lost before, because IOC members might not vote in large numbers, assuming the city would remain for later rounds.
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