2016 Olympics

One week from today, on October 2, the IOC will announce which of four cities will host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Will it be Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid or Rio? No surprise that I'm hoping for Chicago, partly just because it would be exciting, and partly because I think it would be good for our local economy. Maybe not in the long, long term, i.e., after the games are over, but in the seven years of preparation leading up to 2016, a lot of money will be spent getting ready, and it might as well be spent here.

Will President Obama go to Copenhagen to pitch for Chicago? It's beginning to look as if he might. Apparently a White House advance team was sent to Denmark to scope out the place, just in case. Initially it was reported that he wasn't going because he didn't want to be away from the health care debate, but some cynics suggested he was also concerned about the political risk - if Chicago doesn't get the games after the President makes a personal appeal, does that make him look weak? On the other hand, if the 2016 games are awarded to Madrid or Tokyo after personal presentations from, respectively, the King of Spain or the Emperor of Japan, you know there will be a lot of 20/20 hindsight saying that if only the President had cared enough to show up in person things might have gone the other way. (I'm not sure who's planning to go from Brazil.)

The local news here is reporting that Mayor Daley is leaving for Copenhagen today to get ready for the final presentations to the IOC, and the Chicago 2016 committee has chartered a United Airlines 747 to take the rest of the team over there on Monday. We're getting down to the wire and there's a lot at stake - I'll definitely be watching next Friday to see how this turns out! Stay tuned.