Sadly, No Chicago

Inevitably, there has been quite a bit of postmortem about Chicago's losing Olympic bid. I think Obama put it best when he said sometimes you play your best game and still lose. While the USOC's state of affairs can be pointed to, I don't think there was a much Chicago could have done. To stretch a metaphor, they were Tyson Gay running against Usain Bolt.

This escaped my notice until just now. CNN's Jack Cafferty, one of the few coarse no-bullshit liberals on television, said "Rio has naked people dancing, Chicago has chubby people eating. Which do you want to see on TV?" When you put it that way it appears inevitable.

Bidding Update

Michael Jordan is starring in a TV public service announcement promoting the Chicago '16 bid airing on local Chicago stations.

Tokyo '16 leaders have recently said that their bid won't be hurt by low public support, or the destabilizing effect of recent North Korean nuke tests. Sounds like somebody is trying to lower expectations. I think we can count them out.

Toronto leaders bidding for the 2015 Pan-Am Games have said their biggest obstacle is "smugness". I'd love to take a trip up to The Queen City to take them in.

Chicago's Olympic History

Inside The Games.com has an interesting story on the history of Chicago and the Olympics. I knew that the Windy City was originally awarded the 1904 games and gave them up to St. Louis because of a world's fair, but that's about all I knew. The deeper story is pretty interesting.

Chicago 2016 Update

As if a worldwide-favorite President's personal pitch isn't enough to convince the IOC to pick Chicago, they're having dinner with the only American more popular than Obama: Oprah.

Damn. If those two can't win over the IOC, we had no chance to begin with.