If Juan Antonio Samaranch’s dying-man plea didn’t work for Madrid, Barack Obama’s recycled “together we can’’ mantra wasn’t going to do it for Chicago. This was Rio de Janeiro’s time, plain and simple. The International Olympic Committee couldn’t ignore South America forever. “It is time to address this imbalance,’’ Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told IOC members in Copenhagen yesterday, before they chose Rio to host the 2016 Olympics in a 66-32 landslide over Madrid. “It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country.’’
Not that the Lords of the Rings needed an excuse to dust off their thongs and flip-flops and head for Ipanema. They’ve always been intrigued by exotic locales and Rio had been on the rise coming in. What was startling was the first-round knockout of Chicago, which most insiders had figured for a finalist but which managed only 18 of the 94 votes. “Either it was tactical voting or a lot of people decided not to vote for Chicago whatever,’’ mused Norwegian executive board member Gerhard Heiberg. “Nobody knows, but everybody is in a state of shock. Nobody believes it.’’
Not since 1976, when Los Angeles finished third behind Montreal and Moscow, has a US candidate been bounced so early. Chicago was finished before Mayor Richard Daley even got inside the convention center. “It just wasn’t our day to win,’’ shrugged bid leader Pat Ryan, whose committee spent nearly four years and $50 million mounting its campaign. “That’s just the way it goes.’’
Was Chicago simply not the IOC’s kind of town? Or was the smackdown more about how the rest of the world feels about America and how the IOC feels about the US Olympic Committee? New York’s package for 2012 was far from flawless, but it didn’t help that the US was in the middle of an unpopular war in 2005 and had an unpopular man in the White House.
The Iraq war may be winding down and Obama may provoke warmer feelings abroad than did George Bush but most of the countries that the IOC’s 106 members represent rightly or not blame America for the global economic meltdown. How much Uncle Sam resentment seeped into the vote can’t be known. What’s undeniable, though, is that the last few Games held in the States have been five-ringed headaches for the IOC.
Salt Lake City had the skating judging fiasco and the bribery scandal that turned the committee inside out and expunged 10 percent of its members. Atlanta had the Centennial Olympic Park bombing and a tacky commercialized atmosphere. Los Angeles had the Soviet boycott that was sparked by the US-led boycott of Moscow. Chicago couldn’t do a thing about the past, but had to live with it.
More burdensome was the USOC’s prickly relationship with Lausanne, most notably involving sharing TV rights and sponsorship cash. Though the parties had agreed to postpone negotiations until after the 2016 vote, the issue is far from being solved and the members likely reckoned that giving the Games to Chicago only would have strengthened the USOC’s hand.
The USOC’s ham-handed announcement of an Olympic network that would have competed with NBC didn’t help. Though chairman Larry Probst and IOC president Jacques Rogge patched things up over the summer after the USOC backed off, it was a major protocol breach signaling to the IOC that the USOC once again is being run by amateurs. “It was a defeat for the USOC,’’ said Swiss member Denis Oswald, “not for Chicago.’’
On the merits, Chicago had an excellent bid. Its venue package was attractive and the budget as reasonable as the usual Olympic dream sheet ever gets. Once the city agreed last month to underwrite the costs, the only major barrier was removed. Had Obama spent several days in Copenhagen schmoozing members individually, as Tony Blair did for London, it undoubtedly would have been more helpful than his last-minute drop-in - he didn’t even stick around for the balloting. But in the end, this vote was about geopolitics.
The IOC wasn’t going to name Tokyo so soon after going to Beijing. And though the 89-year-old Samaranch, the ex-president, reminded his former confreres that “I am very near the end of my time,’’ Madrid would have been the fifth European host in seven winter and summer Games. Rio’s best argument was the global map that its backers kept displaying, with South America big and blank.
This, finally, was the time to go tropical. Rio did a creditable job of hosting the 2007 Pan American Games and will stage the 2014 World Cup in soccer. Brazil has become a major economic player. What it craved was the kind of validation that only the Olympics can give. “Today Brazil was upgraded from a second-class country to a first-class country,’’ declared Lula, who’d been lobbying the developing-country bloc for months.
Not that Rio is going to be a walk on the beach. Crime still is a worrisome issue there and the city needs more hotels. But by 2016 the world will be desperate for a three-week carnival. Of the four Olympic bidders, only the Brazilians have enough sand and jiggle to pull it off.
The US entry didn’t make it past the first round in final voting for the right to host the 2016 Olympics:
FIRST ROUND
Madrid 28 votes, Rio de Janeiro 26, Tokyo 22, Chicago 18.
SECOND ROUND Rio de Janeiro 46, Madrid 29, Tokyo 20.
THIRD ROUND Rio de Janeiro 66, Madrid 32.
John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com. 
