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It's the latest poll to show the city's bid gaining ground in the race to land the 2016 games, as Chicago pulls out its heavy hitters ahead of Friday's vote by the International Olympic Committee.
Chicago received 44% of the votes to Rio de Janeiro's 43% in an online poll of 150,000 people worldwide taken by InsidetheGames.biz from Sept. 1 to 30. Tokyo drew 10% of the votes, trailed by Madrid with less than 1%.
Chicago was behind for most of the polling period, but picked up momentum when President Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and Oprah Winfrey, all said they would come to Copenhagen to sell the city to the IOC, said Duncan McKay, publisher of InsidetheGames. Rio has been the favorite in several Olympics tracking polls because of the emotional appeal of bringing the games to South America for the first time.
"It's too close to call and could go either way tomorrow," he said.
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And yet, as the Obamas prepare to press the IOC to award the Summer Games to their home town, they are defending a bid that has united Chicago's political and business elite even as many ordinary Chicagoans remain skeptical. Washington Post report
A CBDA official said they had informed world swimming body FINA that they did not have the necessary funding to organise the short-course swimming event from October 23-25 at the Maracana Complex in Rio de Janeiro.
The event would have cost an estimated $500,000.
The CBDA official blamed the "heavy expenditure" incurred by sending swimmers to the world championships in Rome and to several aquatic events throughout the world this year.
Brazil's Olympic and world swimming champion Cesar Cielo, who is presently in Copenhagen to support Rio's bid for the 2016 Olympics, told the daily Estado de Sao Paulo that the situation highlighted the gulf between the money lavished on the Rio-2016 campaign, estimated at 50 million dollars, and the reality for swimming in his country.
He said that swimming in Brazil was "going through a bad period" and said he found it both "incredible and inexplicable" that they could not find the money for this event,
FINA, meanwhile, said they would support the Brazilian organisers if they decided to host the event in 2010.
AFP.
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If making money were an Olympic event, no city hosting the games would win a gold medal. Or silver. Or bronze.
"There has never been an Olympic Games that has made a profit," says Robert Barney, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Barney is also co-author of Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism.
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Brazil's leader is borrowing President Barack Obama's "Yes we can" catchphrase to plug Rio de Janeiro's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Associated Press
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Observers acknowledge what's most important is what happening behind the scenes in the one-on-one conversations voting members have with Chicago officials. But with 2 presidents, a king, a prime minister, and a queen of television in town, Chicago's delegation is taking no chances in having their message heard.
]]>Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Mayor Richard Daley, former Olympic athletes and other VIPs gathered in a Copenhagen hotel tonight (local time) for a welcome dinner to kick off Chicago's final push for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
"For me, this is beyond exciting because here we are, just hours away from a decision that could be a landmark in Chicago history," Winfrey said.
Read more on remarks by her and others at the dinner.
]]>The Chicago area's Brazilian community is hoping that Chicago won't be chosen to host the 2016 Olympics. They want Rio de Janeiro bid to be announced as the winner on Friday by the International Olympic Committee.
"I feel that people should see another side of Brazil, besides violence, carnival, samba, the Amazon and naked women," said Fabiana Kraemer a 25-year-old business student at Elgin Community College. Medill report
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