Was Chicago 2016 Misled Or Did It Miscount?

[jim jones]

JJ,

If Toronto was not planning on bidding for the SOG, it would not be bidding for the PanAms. It's clear that they want to use it as a rehearsal for the main event.

I think Toronto won't go over budget for 2015 because it doesn't need to. The requirements are very low, so it is baiscally useless if that is going to affect the Olympic bid.

In my opinion, however, the next SOG in the Americas won't come before 2028. If the Americans are smart they are going to bid with Chicago. 12 years should be enough for them to learn to play the IOC way. Toronto will probably be the main city on their way. If it doesn't bid, only a forgotten continent like Asia, if it gets no Games between 2008 and 2028, or Oceania, if their last host would be Sydney, might be a real opposition to a bid from the Americas.

Australia would be very stupid to bid in the next 40 years or before the influence of American Tv is no more. Sydney was an Financial Disaster for NBC and the Parent company GE. The 2000 September ratings murder had Beijing 2008 change their bid staging from the northern hemisphere fall to August on Dick Ebersol's words to Juan Antonio Samaranch.

A September to December time frame that Melbourne 1956 or Sydney 2000 had is no longer in the Cards for the SOGs.

I frankly think Toronto and Southern Ontario just wants to win anything period as they have been rejected for two Summer Games Bids and Two Commonwealth Games Bids in the space of 1991 to 2005 . It was not only Hamilton that was totally embarrassed twice by the commonwealth games Federation but also the Suburb of North York who like Hamilton was rejected in the domestic bid for 2014 for Halifax. Nova Scotia . Southern Ontario lost a domestic bid for the commonwealth games (which no one in Canada watches ) to a Fishing village in Nova Scotia?

basically 5 rejections for games and the only hosting of an multi sport festival Ontario has had in many decades is the Francophone Games in Ottawa for 2001. Yeah Toronto is a great place but the losing records for the maple leafs are starting to be rivaled by sports festival bid failures. This is a market that overwhelmingly supports Pro Sports . The only place I see with a parellel in North America is Iromically Chicago . The Cubs are not the winners of the last century and Chicago got kicked in the head for the third time by the IOC.

I frankly can't see how you ever play the IOC way when the majority of Defeats for the Us were while American Avery Bruderage was President of the IOC. It is basically a euro centric group that only awarded the USOC when it absolutely had little or no choice. Mean While they don't appreciate that it was the Americans who saved their Gravy Train on a couple of occasions. Until you have another Montreal 76 case of everyone and his dog writing off the games I think you can kiss the games from a far is you are American.

Nothing satisfies the IOc but complete control over the governments Treasuries to stage an olympics and there are enough suckers out there . The US is not one of those suckers .

Jim jones

[walei]

Isn't that in essence the same as what's there today..except it's more complicated.

No this means if you vote for a city, you cannot switch vote until that city is eliminated. At least this will eliminate the "pity" first round votes. Those that voted with Tokyo/Madrid will be stuck with them and not allowed to change until their voted city is eliminated.

Not sure how this would help with Chicago, but I never agreed one bit that Istanbul beat out Paris in the first round for 2008 bid and later ended up last in the 2nd round.

[FYI]

I think that would be great! It would definitely wipe out all this nonsense of "sympathy votes, regional votes, alliance votes, 'save-face' votes, etc, etc", & would've avoided Chicago being sent out so early.

[aluz]

I think that would be great! It would definitely wipe out all this nonsense of "sympathy votes, regional votes, alliance votes, 'save-face' votes, etc, etc", & would've avoided Chicago being sent out so early.

It would only have an effect on sympathy votes. All the other kinds of votes would still be cast.

[lucas_leobas]

Should there really be a change of rule because of Chicago's first-round elimination? I know it does seem like such a huge deal in the U.S., but I don't think it was that much earth-shattering.

The Chicagoans should have evaluated properly the risk of the first round elimination. I remember I read this whole topic some weeks ago, and I'm kinda tired to do it again in order to seek information, but do we know how many votes did they expect or how big the discrepancy was?

The thing is, it took a traumatic first-round elimination of an excellent bid in a modestly-competitive race like this for the Americans to realize there was something wrong going on. Otherwise, we would still believe that NY lost because their stadium plan collapsed in the voting week. Yes, that helped, but now we know they didn't stand a chance anyway.

[Dino]

According to reports, Chicago was expecting 36 votes for the first round. Plus, there were also some pleas coming out of Tokyo to gather sympathy votes to avoid a first round embarrassment.

[baron-pierreIV]

Obviously, Chicago over-counted; there was great deceit from the IOC'ers. So they're really not a trustworthy bunch to begin with.

[Mainad]

Obviously, Chicago over-counted; there was great deceit from the IOC'ers. So they're really not a trustworthy bunch to begin with.

Well at least 18 of 'em kept their word!

[Kenadian]

That voting proposal changes nothing. The biggest risk is eliminating everyone's second favourite on the first vote. If Chicago had been the second choice of every single member of the IOC who didn't put it first, then Chicago really got ripped off. That would require a preferential or points system type of vote.

While the system has that as a flaw, it is pretty obvious that Rio was destined to be the Olympic host for 2016. They were two votes away from clenching it on the second ballot.

[FYI]

In "hindsight", I would have to agree with the very last part of that assessment. It really does seem like Rio was "destined" to get 2016. And that assertion should've been very clear (at least the begginings of it) last year, when the IOC Executive Board chose to include Rio instead of Doha, on the short-list when Doha scored higher than Rio. The "dates" used against Doha are nonsense. The IOC could've insisted Doha to adjust those dates if they wanted to go forward, & I'm sure Doha would've gladly done it.

And then came the final IOC Evaluation Report, a month before the vote, where it praised Rio all over the place, while only getting very little criticism, versus the other bids. This 2016 race almost seems like it was ala Beijing 2008, were it was clearly Beijing's to lose from the very begginging. The IOC obviously knows what it wants, when it wants it.

[aluz]

In "hindsight", I would have to agree with the very last part of that assessment. It really does seem like Rio was "destined" to get 2016. And that assertion should've been very clear (at least the begginings of it) last year, when the IOC Executive Board chose to include Rio instead of Doha, on the short-list when Doha scored higher than Rio. The "dates" used against Doha are nonsense. The IOC could've insisted Doha to adjust those dates if they wanted to go forward, & I'm sure Doha would've gladly done it.

And then came the final IOC Evaluation Report, a month before the vote, where it praised Rio all over the place, while only getting very little criticism, versus the other bids. This 2016 race almost seems like it was ala Beijing 2008, were it was clearly Beijing's to lose from the very begginging. The IOC obviously knows what it wants, when it wants it.

Give me a break! There are tons of reasons why the IOC would reject the Doha bid besides the dates and th will to give it to Rio. The main one is the big will Qatar has to host the Games in comparison to the lack of will to actually develop Olympic sports. So, why should Qatar be allowed into the peak of the Olympic Movement, if it has not even bothered to deal with the basics. Not to mention political and security reasons. I bet that many of the people who criticized the Brazilian bid would not hesitate to pick Rio over Doha.

By the way, the dates are a big issue if one considers the impact they have in the broadcasting revenue of the event, but I still believe that a country with more involvement in the Olympic Movement would be able to move them a little bit.

Don't get derailed. The problem is the lack of attention of the people in the USOC and the Chicago BCOG with their connections with the IOC. It was clear their lack of understanding of the process and, more important, of the people managing it.

[FYI]

Well of course there were many other reasons why the IOC would reject a bid from Doha. I knew it would be, mainly due to politics (although there were some others on here that refuted differently). My stating the "dates" was just a facetious remark, really, because that *mere* reason alone that the IOC gave Doha was nothing more than a smokescreen. And Doha didn't waste any time in accusing the IOC on "closing the door on the Arab world".

But lets also be realistic here; the preliminary evaluation is a review on the *technical* aspect of each of the applicants (which Doha passed & scored higher than Rio: fact), & what's the point of this really, if one is to tweak the final results however they see fit, hence, defeating the main purpose of this very process. Obviously, the move was political.

For 2012, Rio's bid wasn't that much different than their 2016 proposal, but they weren't good enough then to be included with the other finalists. But 4 years later, with only just a few changes from their 2012 plan & voila! They're suddenly good to go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint Rio in a negative light, but either they got robbed for 2012, or the IOC just likes to play games, or a little bit of both. That's not being derailed, it's looking at what it actually there. And perhaps the USOC wasn't quite connected with the IOC, but they ceratinly were far better prepared this time than their 2012 effort.

[Pure facts]

For 2012, Rio's bid wasn't that much different than their 2016 proposal, but they weren't good enough then to be included with the other finalists. But 4 years later, with only just a few changes from their 2012 plan & voila! They're suddenly good to go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint Rio in a negative light, but either they got robbed for 2012, or the IOC just likes to play games, or a little bit of both. That's not being derailed, it's looking at what it actually there. And perhaps the USOC wasn't quite connected with the IOC, but they ceratinly were far better prepared this time than their 2012 effort.

No that much different but still different:

- The investment plan for transport infrastructure was much more realistic for 2016 than for 2012: it's much easier and less risky to build BRT lines than metro lines -> the uncertainty linked to this part of Rio plan was reduced from 2004 to 2008

- The venues for the 2007 PanAm Games were still under construction in 2004 but were existing in 2008: again, less risk

- Accommodation capacity was also increased in the 4 years between the two bids: not sufficient yet but less risky as well

So yeah the 2016 and 2012 plans are similar (and technically not as strong as Chcicaog, Madrid, TOkyo and Doha) but the level of risk/uncertainty has been reduced.

It's not like the Brazilian Olympic Committee did nothing during the 4 years between the 2 bids.

[aluz]

Well of course there were many other reasons why the IOC would reject a bid from Doha. I knew it would be, mainly due to politics (although there were some others on here that refuted differently). My stating the "dates" was just a facetious remark, really, because that *mere* reason alone that the IOC gave Doha was nothing more than a smokescreen. And Doha didn't waste any time in accusing the IOC on "closing the door on the Arab world".

But lets also be realistic here; the preliminary evaluation is a review on the *technical* aspect of each of the applicants (which Doha passed & scored higher than Rio: fact), & what's the point of this really, if one is to tweak the final results however they see fit, hence, defeating the main purpose of this very process. Obviously, the move was political.

For 2012, Rio's bid wasn't that much different than their 2016 proposal, but they weren't good enough then to be included with the other finalists. But 4 years later, with only just a few changes from their 2012 plan & voila! They're suddenly good to go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint Rio in a negative light, but either they got robbed for 2012, or the IOC just likes to play games, or a little bit of both. That's not being derailed, it's looking at what it actually there. And perhaps the USOC wasn't quite connected with the IOC, but they ceratinly were far better prepared this time than their 2012 effort.

Just some comments...

1. The initial grade is done based on a questionnaire which doesn't include the final bid book content and is graded with no checking if what's written there is actually true.

2. The few different cities from 2012 included heavyweights such as NYC, London and Paris, which are 3 cities that the IOC will probably shortlist every time they bid. It was clear an European shortlist, with Moscow closing the final 5.

3. The plan for 2016 has major changes in the areas where Rio had bad grades in 2012, such as security, transport and financial aspects. The only part that remained basically the same was the venue plan, which was actually more spread out than it was for 2012. Besides, the new venues and the experience from the PanAm organization improved many details in the plan and reduced the risk perception by the IOC. Nuzman himself said that not being shortlisted for 2012 was a good decision by the IOC. Finally in 2005, the preparations for the PanAm were late and the Brazilian economy was just starting its cycle of sustainable growth.

4. The first phase of the process, establishes that all bidding cities which are graded above 6.0 are eligible for the final round. There is no rule that forces the IOC to choose the 4 best scores.

5. Regarding Doha. Do you really think that, with all the effort done by the IOC to balance the participation of men and women in the Games, they will go to a country which treats women as second class citizens? I think this is enough to shut them down. But the dates are also a major issue because of conflicting TV events which take place in October, when Doha proposed to host, and for not being a vacation period. And there are more reasons...

[FYI]

Just some comments...

2. The few different cities from 2012 included heavyweights such as NYC, London and Paris, which are 3 cities that the IOC will probably shortlist every time they bid. It was clear an European shortlist, with Moscow closing the final 5.

Exactly. Which brings it back to my initial statement: 'The IOC knows what it wants, when it wants it'. And for 2016, that was Rio.

And about Doha, again it was obvious that there were other reasons Doha was rejected, but obviously the IOC didn't tell them the other real reasons, other than making an issue of only the dates. Hence, why I made the facetious Doha date comment.

[baron-pierreIV]

And about Doha, again it was obvious that there were other reasons Doha was rejected, but obviously the IOC didn't tell them the other real reasons, other than making an issue of only the dates. Hence, why I made the facetious Doha date comment.

And if Doha, Dubai...and that whole string of desert waste/wonderlands don't get it; then they really are a bunch of dumb coconuts who should not be entrusted with such a huge and important undertaking.

BTW, on "Amazing Race" last Sunday, they showed the Dubai Ski complex...migod, it is absolutely surreal!! But it's a low hill though, I think no more than 170 feet high at the start. Yeah, those shiekdoms are really like...what's a kinda word to use...mirages. Like Vegas but without the glitz and the skin.