It Starts Tonight

They were supposed to be the Chicago Olympics. Leading up to the selection announcement in October, 2009, it felt like a done deal. How could we lose? Newly elected president Barack Obama personally went to Copenhagen to pitch the IOC. Oprah was there too, on behalf of her home city. It was a lock.

Except, no, it wasn't. In an article titled "In retrospect, losing 2016 Olympics to Rio a big victory for Chicago," Tribune writer David Haugh describes what happened:

It was Oct. 2, 2009, and thousands of us gathered at Daley Plaza to await the big announcement from the International Olympic Committee's vote in Copenhagen. Satellite trucks from 15 news organizations parked on Clark Street. October optimism — the rarest of things in Chicago — reigned. 

Anticipation filled the autumn air. One mother pulled her son out of elementary school to experience what she expected to be historic event. And it was.

It was the day the IOC saved Chicago from itself.

At exactly 10:32 a.m., then-IOC President Jacques Rogge forever became part of the city's sports landscape with a stunning declaration: "The city of Chicago, having obtained the least number of votes, will not participate in the next round.'' Given Chicago's status as the favorite, this was the equivalent of a No. 1 seed being ousted by a No. 16 on the first day of March Madness. A shocker.

Seven years later, things look different: 

As bad as things seem in a city already fighting violence and the financial collapse of its government and school system, consider how much worse things would be if officials were distracted by hosting an international event as gargantuan as the Games. Hosting the Olympics would have skewed our civic priorities even more, a conclusion more potential host cities are reaching. Chicago is broken. The Olympics likely would have added to the disrepair more than made it easier to fix.

On Tuesday, we learned that July was Chicago's deadliest July in a decade. Yet even that grim news was spun in some police circles as progress because, at least, the 65 homicides represented an improvement from June's 72. Can you imagine welcoming the world to Chicago under those circumstances? How much confidence would anybody have in security for the Games in a city that struggles so mightily protecting itself?

Not to mention the frightening financial realities in the land of stopgap budgets. Finding a way to pay for the Olympics would have been hard to accept in a city that barely can pay its teachers. Chicago's bid came in at $4.8 billion, an unrealistically low number. Rio already has gone at least $100 million above its $14.4 billion estimate. London, host of the 2012 Games, budgeted $4 billion but spent $14 billion. According to tax returns, Chicago's unsuccessful bid cost $70.6 million and we can feel fortunate the sea of debt went no deeper.

So Chicago dodged a bullet and the Games are Rio's problem now, and for better or for worse, it starts tonight. Thoughts: 

The conventions went first. If it seems like things are a little backwards this time around, you're right. The Olympics usually happen before the political conventions. (Last time around the Democratic convention didn't start until after Labor Day.) Both parties moved their meetings to earlier in the summer this time, mostly having to do with campaign finance rules about when they can raise and spend money in the general election. In past election years the campaigns went into a bit of a lull during the Olympic fortnight. Will that happen this year? Possibly not. With the GOP nominee's documented love of media attention, who knows what he'll do or say to keep the spotlight on himself. 

Is Mitt there? Ever since he led the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Mitt Romney has been a familiar face at the Games. In 2012 he took a break from campaigning for president to attend the London Games, stirring up some controversy in the process. (Remember "Mitt the Twit?") 

Is Rafalca there? Who? Rafalca is Ann Romney's dressage horse, who participated in the dressage events at the 2012 games, somewhat to the dismay of horse daddy Mittens. (I wrote about it here.) I did a quick google search and best as I can tell, Rafalca's not competing this time around; if I hear differently I'll note it here in the blog. 

Time zones. Rio is only one hour ahead of Eastern time, a big change from Beijing (12 hours ahead) and London (5 hours ahead.) Still, NBC is not showing the Opening Ceremony live, reserving their right to not show us what's really happening but rather what they want us to see, all spruced up in a rah rah American way and broken up with many, many commercials. There was a bit of a thing about language and the names of countries. Countries walk in the Parade of Nations in alphabetical order, as expressed in the language of the host country, in this case, Portuguese. This put the U.S. (Estados Unidos) somewhere in the middle of the pack. That's not good for NBC, because what if American viewers tune out/turn off after the Americans walk in? Not good for ratings, so NBC tried to get things changed to English, which puts the United States near the end of the parade. (Read about it here.) 

After Rio, what's next? The next three Olympic games will be the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, Korea, the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Will the games ever return to the U.S.? Possibly. Los Angeles is bidding for the 2024 games, with the selection announcement to be made on September 13, 2017.