Rio de Janiero is celebrating today and rightfully so.
The South American city won the 2016 Olympic bid in a passionate and well-crafted appeal to the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen. In fact, Rio pretty much swept the competition including Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago in that order.
Although it's being touted as Pres. Barack Obama's folly for having gone to Copenhagen and Chicago being so soundly rejected, it's so much more than that in implications for the United States.
The U.S. seems to be on a slippery slide downward where the Olympics are concerned.
Chicago's loss of the games really didn't have so much to do with Chicago or Obama.
Think about the recent rejection of baseball and softball from the Olympics-- two basically American games. And yet, we have curling.
Think about the past rejection of New York City, which strong bid came in next to last.
Think about the fiasco of the 2002 Winter Olympic games in Salt Lake City and the embarrassing bid scandal involving allegations of bribery to obtain the those games.
Think about the Atlanta Summer Olympic games in 1996 and how commercial the world thought they were. It was one of the cities that actually showed a profit for the games of $10 million.
I'm sure there is lots more. But it really doesn't matter. Chicago, which would have been a wonderful city to host the 2016 Olympics, will be watching them on television, just like the rest of us.
That doesn't take anything away from Rio and I was glad to see the Brazilian people dancing in the streets.
Congratulations Rio, my longtime bucket list city. I'm happy for you.
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