Samba! Rio to host 2016 Olympics
Published: Saturday | October 3, 2009
And the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was hooked.
Olympians, we'll see you on Copacabana beach in 2016. Let Carnival begin!
On a chilly Danish evening of high drama, the IOC yesterday sent the Games of the 31st Olympiad to Brazil's bustling, fun-loving but crime-ridden city of beaches and mountains, romance and slums.
The IOC closed its eyes to the risks - the huge projected costs of the Rio Games, the concerns about how athletes would get around and where people would sleep - to focus on the reward of lighting the Olympic cauldron in one of the last corners of the globe yet to be bathed by its light.
Brazil's time
"It is Brazil's time," said the country's charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In a vote of high drama, the bustling Brazilian carnival city of beaches, mountains and samba beat surprise finalist Madrid, which got a big helping hand from a very influential friend.
Chicago was knocked out in the first round - in one of the most shocking defeats ever handed down by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Even Tokyo, which had trailed throughout the race, did better - eliminated after Chicago in the second round.
Rio spoke to IOC members' consciences: the city argued that it was simply unfair that South America has never hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly.
"It is a time to address this imbalance," said Brazil's charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Chicago got 18 votes in the first round, with Tokyo squeezing into the second round with 22. Madrid was leading after the first round with 28 votes, while Rio had 26.
In the second round, Tokyo was eliminated with just 20 votes. Madrid got 29, qualifying it for the final round face-off with Rio, which by then already had a strong lead, with 46 votes.
Silva, a bearded former union leader, disappeared into a huge group hug with the joyous Rio team after IOC president Jacques Rogge announced the city's name.
Football great Pele had tears in his eyes.
biggest sporting events
On Rio's Copacabana beach, where the city will hold beach volleyball in 2016, the crowd of nearly 50,000 people roared. The party there was expected to go on well into the night.
Brazil will now hold the world's two biggest sporting events in the space of just two years.
In 2014, it is organising the World Cup.
The slap to Chicago was such that some IOC members were left squirming. The Windy City's plans for Olympic competition along its stunning Lake Michigan waterfront had long made it a front-runner and earned support from the highest possible level - President Barack Obama himself.
His wife, Michelle, flew in two days before the vote to butter up IOC members, an essential part of the selection process. And Obama himself flew in yesterday morning.
IOC members had seemed wowed, posing for photos with Mrs Obama and taking souvenir shots of the president with their mobile phones. But, in the vote, Chicago was shunned.
risky bid
"Either it was tactical voting, or a lot of people decided not to vote for Chicago whatever happened," IOC member Gerhard Heiberg said. "Nobody knows, but everybody is in a state of shock. Nobody believes it. I'm very sorry about it."
Rio's bid, while high on romance, is not without risk. Because of Rio's high crime and murder rates, security will be a constant issue in 2016.
Preparing Rio for the Olympics will cost billions of dollars - money that critics said could have been better spent on tackling the city's social problems.
But the lure of that untapped frontier proved too strong for the IOC to turn down.
"We have sent out a message that we want to go global," Heiberg said.
Now, Africa and Antarctica are the only continents never to have been awarded an Olympics.
