Olympic bids alive despite setbacks
Neither Chicago's marathon meltdown nor Brazil's stadium collapse will matter
Astadium in Brazil just collapsed so the Brazilian summer Olympics 2016 bid is in peril. Right?
Wrong.
Wait, so you didn't hear about the soccer stadium in Salvador, Brazil, that collapsed and left seven dead and 40 wounded?
Don't worry. The masses of Rio De Janeiro -- our strongest rival to host the 2016 summer Olympics -- didn't froth back in October when the deadly Chicago Marathon melted down in what we felt was the thirst that was felt around the world. It actually wasn't, by all accounts I've been able to get my mitts on. None of the other host city bidders gleefully rubbed their hands at our sad news.
Not that the marathon debacle had anything to do with the attractiveness of our bid anymore than the 29 successful races before it did. Conversely, you could throw the relative success of the World Boxing Championships on the pile of lukewarm reasons for the International Olympic Committee to give us the nod, which brings me back to Salvador.
''It took place hundreds of miles from Rio de Janeiro. It's really difficult to infer that this would impact the bid,'' Ed Hula, the editor of aroundtherings.com, the comprehensive Olympics Web site, told me. I'd asked him to gauge Brazil's immediate defensiveness about how the tragedy would impact not only the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament, but its 2016 bid.
''Overall, if you're bidding for an Olympic Games you want everything to go right; you don't want any glitches like marathon problems or stadium collapses,'' Hula said. ''You want to present decent security and assurance that things will go right as planned. If Chicago had chronic problems, yeah that would be something to be worried about.''
Even as the CTA Doomsday bells start ringing in your head, remember that Brazil's transportation infrastructure isn't exactly state of the art. It has only been a few months since Brazil was making headlines when more than 200 people were killed in several separate incidents involving its air system.
With the Jan. 13 deadline looming for the broad brush-stroke bid plans to be submitted by Chicago, Rio, Tokyo, Madrid, Prague, Baku and Doha, the question is: What actually will make the difference?
The IOC already has stated that one major component is name recognition. And though we're known as the land of Al Capone, Michael Jordan and hog-butchering, Chicago is, according to comments Mayor Daley made to the Associated Press last summer, ''really a secret throughout the world.''
It has been well publicized that the mayor and the Chicago bid committee are busting hump schmoozing all over the world. But while you and I are thinking locally, we need to look at the national picture -- an uncomfortable thought at the moment as world opinions of President Bush and America are creeping toward the gutter.
''The IOC places a real high importance on the relationship between itself and the host country government,'' Hula said. ''You want everybody on board speaking as a common voice.''
''A stadium collapse in Brazil in 2007 would have close to zero impact on a bid,'' NBC sports analyst Alan Abrahamson said. ''It's way more important who's elected president next year.
''There's a certain amount of sports leadership the IOC wants to see, but they're also looking for emphatic government support. You look at it ... Mitt Romney ran the Salt Lake Olympics and, nothing against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton was very active for lobbying for New York's 2012 bid. Hillary is a known quantity on the Olympic stage. And as in anything, relationships are the key to life. That's especially the case in the Olympic universe.''
Of course there are perils to having a strong voice. Several host city mayors have misspoken on the march toward the Olympics. But if nothing else, Mayor Daley is a diplomat, and I don't see him blundering.
Still, the future is unclear. Barring major tragedy -- though the Sept. 11 attacks didn't sway the IOC to give New York the 2012 Games -- the top four contenders are still in a dead heat.