>>>Looks like you're right. Rio won.
>>>
>>>>I don't think violence puts off this sort of thing. After all next years World Cup is in South Africa which is an extremely violent place.
>>
>>I think his actions actually hurt us more than helping in anyway on the world stage. It came across as heavy handedness (imagine if Bush had done the same - the world would be screaming imperialistic nonsense right now) and in the global scheme of things, the U.S. doesn't need the olympics. It's as though the administration thought his charisma would sell it. In reality, other countries have experience with leaders or potential leaders with charisma and words that actually say nothing and little substance on the stage. They have learned their lesson and are generally more suspicious. It would have made more political sense for him to publicly push one of our allies that we actually owe something (too bad Poland and Czech Rep were not in the running). Another country that really would have been helped is S Korea. Doesn't matter whether or not they've hosted any Olympic games before. He would have taken a hit at home (it would have been a hard hit too), but it would have been worth it. If he had better intelligence, then he would have known Rio was a shoe-in and could've publicly supported their bid.
>
>I just finished reading the news section of today's Chicago Tribune, which is full of things about the Olympic bid. No one is blaming Obama. One article said he had to be talked into going, on the basis that the vote was expected to be close and a visit from him might make the difference. It said he was sensitive to being out of the country even briefly with health care reform being debated. Another article said a lot of IOC members wanted it to be Rio and some may have voted against Chicago in the first round so it didn't come down to Rio vs. Chicago in the end. (There are always three rounds of voting, no matter how many votes anyone gets before that). Also, there has been a lot of bad blood between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee over money and other issues. We are not a big player in the IOC; it is dominated by Europeans. It's impossible to know for sure. My guess it was just Rio's year. And good for them. I am disappointed for Chicago but happy for Rio.

Also the man organising the Rio bid organised the London bid so I guess he's getting good at it.