Chicago Looses bid

I was rooting for Chicago to win, although I had predicted it won't. I also predicted that Rio would win the 2016 bid for holding Olympics. (I am not being smarty pants here, but I had predicted it nevertheless..)

My rationale being, in the new Globalized environment, Americans don't hold the lead torch anymore. World is a different place and even if it would have been assumed that Chicago would grease the palms of IOC members to ram through and win, it could not be assumed that Madrid,Rio and Tokyo won't.

They are no paupers. They got some real money muscle too. In fact, lot would say, the opposite is true now. For what we know, Chicago could be the real pauper amongst these cities.

Anyhow the real reason Chicago did not win and had little chance is Numbers. Look at it this way. It was competing against Rio, who it can be safely assumed had all of South America voting for it (except may be Argentina). Now most of South America would generally go with the US, if Rio wasn't a part of the deal. But this was their best chance. Most flights going to Brazil, will have stops in one of those countries.(Just a simple example)

So they probably voted en bloc to Rio. Then comes Europeans. They would again have voted en bloc for Spain, barring a few nations. That leaves Asians and Africans. It became clear from question from Paki IOC dude, that the middle east and large part of Asia was not voting for Chicago. That leaves the continent of Africa. Well, assuming that Obama-Oprah duo may have influenced a bunch of African votes, that wasn't good enough.

Hence I am not wee bit surprised by the outcome. What surprised me though, is how many people actually liked the fact that Chicago din't win. Specially in my office. There were people actually rooting for Chicago not to win. And they may have a point.

Check this Link

Anyhoo... as my friend suggested, who the F knows, where we will be in 2016. Quite true. Who the f really knows.. We may be in Rio for all we know. And honestly, I would love to be there. If you have seen some pictures from Rio, you should no why.. ;)...(My wife calls me pervy pervertson for good reasons )

Bill Maher, though, put it best.."When it came to decide, the Olympic Committee thought- where would you like to spend summer vacation? A land where models invented bikini wax or the land where fat guyz invented deep dish pizza"...

Haha.. Couldn't agree more!