Bid Cities Set Media Schedules
Today’s the day the 2016 bid cities begin their media events in Copenhagen ahead of the Oct. 2 IOC vote.
A chartered United Airlines flight arrives around midday carrying hundreds of Chicago 2016 supporters from the Windy City. Bid leaders such as chairman Patrick Ryan and Mayor Richard Daley are already in Copenhagen.
Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Chicago will each have media briefings today, with briefings scheduled through Thursday.
Madrid will fly its team to Copenhagen Wednesday on an Iberia Airlines charter. Only one briefing is set for the Spanish bid, on Thursday morning.
Chicago would seem to have the most developed program of media events, including appearances by athletes at Danish sports clubs and a dinner for the Chicagoans making the journey to cheer their bid. Tokyo also plans events with Olympians in Copenhagen, while Rio de Janeiro has scheduled a cultural night for Wednesday evening.
Chicago, Not Rio, Source of Anti-Chicago Website
It turns out the anti-Chicago website www.chicagoansforrio.com is not from Rio de Janeiro, as initially reported by several publications.
The Chicago Tribune says the website is the creation of a disillusioned advertising copywriter in Chicago.
"The intention was not to cause an international incident," Kevin Lynch tells the newspaper.
He said he registered the website in March when his opinion of the Chicago bid “began to sour” reports the Tribune.
"I walked from the idea where I thought this was the type of city where something like that would do really well, to questions -- it was just the process after that," Lynch is quoted.
The website went online Sep. 20 and launched speculation thay it was a production of someone in Rio de Janeiro.
Chicago 2016 denounced the site and Rio 2016 disavowed any connection.
Lynch says he doesn’t think his website can be blamed if Chicago fails to win the Oct. 2 vote.
"If we don't get the bid, and you can blame it on a one-page Web site? I would suggest the bid wasn't so strong after all. In this contest, you really do have four great cities, and a lot of sentimental logic in Rio for the vote to go that way,” Lynch told the Tribune.
Media Watch
Fox News reports that some members of Congress are attacking Barack Obama’s plans to fly to Copenhagen for the IOC Session.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/28/obama-draws-criticism-hitting-pause-promote-chicago-olympics-bid/?test=latestnews
Olympic Historian Says Chicago Won the Games Before
If Chicago wins the 2016 Olympics, it will actually be the second time the International Olympic Committee has awarded the Games to the Windy City.
Chicago was unanimously voted to host the 1904 Olympics. Then St. Louis, which was organizing the World's Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition), pressured the IOC to move the Games so it could be part of the larger event. St. Louis threatened to hold a competing international sports event, and U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt sided with St.Louis.
"I
Olympic historian David Wallechinsky. (ATR)feel like Chicago got cheated out of the Games 105 years ago," Olympic historian David Wallechinsky tells Around the Rings. "From my point of view, historically the IOC owes one to Chicago."Wallechinsky, author of "The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics," which will come out prior to the Vancouver Games, admits he is speaking tongue-in -cheek.
But the Midwestern city does have a case.
"Chicago deserved the 1904 Olympics," he says.
"They were given the 1904 Olympics because they were enthusiastic and their athletes had gone to the first Olympics. But St. Louis was all whiny, 'We're going to make trouble for you, we don't want you competing with ours,' so the IOC said, ' Whatever, as long as it's in the U.S.'"
Wallechinsky doesn't think 1904 will have any bearing, though, when the votes are counted.
"I doubt that most of the IOC members have the institutional memory to appreciate what is owed to Chicago," he says.
Olympic Press Veteran Sidelined by Appendix
Associated Press Olympics expert Steve Wilson will miss his first host city vote at an IOC Session since 1991 when Nagano won the 1998 Winter Games.
Wilson is recuperating from surgery at his home in London after an attack of appendicitis last week.
He says he is fine, but not ready to play five sets.
Written by Ed Hula, Karen Rosen and Mark Bisson..
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