Chicago Is The First Eliminated, Tokyo Next Out For 2016 Olympics. It's Down To Rio And Madrid.

Yeah - they got my vote! 

Yeah, 'cause no one can do more than one thing at once. Bush was a perfect example of that.

Yeah, I knew this would somehow give Obama haters reason to cheer.

Obama was one of three world leaders that were there to stump for a city in their country to get the Olympic games. Previous Presidents stumped for other US cities to get the games in previous years.. No one had a problem with it then, I don't see why people have a problem with what Obama did now..... oh wait, I do see why, nevermind. People are haters.

There is that side of the argument..... there is also the other side that says that the Olympics create jobs in important sectors, like construction where unemployment is pretty high right now.

Also, not sure how much you'll recall the Olympics of '84.... but LA was able to build a ton of infrastructure (highways, bridges, etc.) to support the Olympics but that same infrastructure was really needed by the city too... and a lot of that infrastructure lasted for 20+ years after the games and in general was a good thing.

I think the same things would have been possible in Chicago too.

 A friend of mine posted on his facebook that some caller to WGN Radio in Chicago blamed it on George W.

Just posting the crazy's on all sides.

And for the Record, we could be able to watch a lot of things live or whatever, since timezones, while not equal, are very close.

 I think that Rio would be a better city than any of the others that were up for it..... who doesn't like Rio and it's heavy population of hot Brazilian chicks?!

I'm not really an Obama fan by any means, but anyone who holds this against him is just grasping for straws. There's a lot more to it than just one man's speech. Does that mean every single time the IOC chose a non-American city, the current president deserved to be "knocked down a few pegs"? Or is it only Obama, because he at least made an unprecedented effort to bring the games to the US again?

If you really want to find a way to bash Obama, there are far better things to use than this irrelevant decision.

To each his own my good fellow. I had to stick it out, while Bush got attacked. Obama should have stuck to his original agenda and focused on his health care reform.

*facepalm* 

I"m not why you would want our president to be knocked down a few pegs, but whatever.

Love It!! This should knock Obama down a few pegs!

I hate to sound selfish, but... better them than us.

I have many thoughts about why and how this happened, but I don't know that I'll be able to set them out for some time; I'm much too depressed to be cogent (at the very least, I can say that I found the heavy-handedness of Samaranch, of whom I was never a fan, to be disgusting).  Notwithstanding the recent line movements, I continued to believe that Rio was the likeliest choice, but I so hoped I'd be wrong, and as I stayed up all night getting more excited by the hour, I didn't expect that things would end as they did.  As some will know, the mountain bike and road cycling events were to be held in Madison, and to have some part of the Games of the Olympiad contested in my home state would have been amazing.  (To be clear, I should say that were I a resident of or lawmaker representing Chicago, I, as a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist who should like to see no government involvement at all in, well, anything, would be compelled to oppose to the bid, but as a Wisconsinite I can [could, rather; I still struggle to accept that it's over] hope for Chicago to score the Games, giving those of us to the north a good bit of fun at little personal expense.) 

Exactly.  I am not sure that this was a wise choice.  I realize that South America has never hosted, but i think Brazil will be financially devastated after 2016. 

Rio FTW.

Rio wins!!!  Just saw it.  The only problem with that is that Brazil is scheduled to host the 2014 World Cup and now the 2016 Olympics?  Yikes!

I wasn't sufficiently clear, I guess; by "broader proposition" I meant only your sweeping conclusion about the position of the populace (a broad inference that followed, I gathered, from a reliance on outliers).  I do not doubt that the net economic effect on Chicago of the Games would have been negative, and I reserved comment on the underlying question; I meant only to suggest that you overstated public opposition (I should say that I recognize that a recent poll, adduced by you and Dave, put support at below 50 per cent, but so too did opposition fail to cross that line, such that, again, the suggestion that opposition was "well over 50%" simply cannot stand). 

The last poll I saw was 45% for and 47% against.  It just would have been a mess. Soldier Field was way over budget and is the worst of the new stadiums in the country, Milennium park, which is the city's #1 tourist attraction, was three times over budget.  We have teachers being laid off, public workers taking days off with no pay, yet we're spending hundreds of million to throw a party.

Cool, now my city has a shot in 2020! 

Not surprising, considering the USA has hosted the summer Olympics four times, more than any other nation, and Spain held their version of the summer Olympic Games in 1992 (Barcelona).

Rio it is.  Mark my words.

~app

It's simply not true that "well over 50% of Chicagoans were against the [G]ames".  Many polls showed a net support in single digits, whilst others (e.g., Zogby, undertaken earlier this week) pegged support at two-to-one; there is, at least AFAICT, no statistical (cf., anecdotal) evidence for your broader proposition (although it must be said that there was grand opposition to certain provisions of the plan). 

So what words and smith of words, David could beat Goliath.....!

It would've been funnier if Chicago destroyed Tokyo, upset Madrid, and fell in the finals via a comeback win from Rio de Janeiro. It'd almost be the FIFA Confederations Cup all over again.

Samaranch was stumping/rigging it for Madrid, and he had the advantage of dealing in back rooms. That, plus Rio being the favorites, plus possibly the Asian IOC members voting as a bloc for Tokyo might have been what did Chicago in. Well, that's my speculation before the vote tallies are released anyway.

Hopefully Rio wins it. That'd be fun. Oh well for Chicago.

We're used to first round exits around here: Cubs two years in a row, White Sox last year, and don't forget the Bulls.

True and I just purchased a vial of Oprah's Tears! 

Thank goodness.  Olympic games mean major long-term debt for cities.  This was an upset not to make it to the final vote against Rio, but it was a welcomed one. 

Its going to be Rio because south America has never hosted a summer olympics. Chicago never had a real shot

I'm just happy to see Oprah be devastated.  That being said, i really wanted to rent out my house for a few grand in 2016, but I'll settle for Oprah's tears.