[NU Sports] No Olympics for Chicago in 2016

[Jonathan Hodges]

The modern pentathlon was the event that was slated to be staged at Ryan
Field if Chicago would have received the 2016 bid.

I'm not surprised at all - I thought Rio was the sentimental favorite going
in and would have been surprised if they didn't go far.

Remember that the voting typically doesn't make much sense, especially in
the early rounds.  I wouldn't say that Chicago was "4th out of 4" because of
the way the voting is done (they vote in rounds until a city receives more
than 50% of the vote, otherwise the lowest vote getter is eliminated and
voting continues).  Cities with strong bids have been known to go out in the
first round due to international politics and voting promises that make the
early votes very close.

And in the end, the IOC voting is more about sentiment and politics than the
strength of bids (in fact, all the analysis focusing on the bid specifics
was pretty much wasted - all of the cities involved could conceivably host
the games without major issue - and the voting never comes down to details).

At least we don't have to endure another 7 years of lead-up to the games
now.

Jonathan

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Not particularly NU-relevant, though
> > Patrick Ryan was one of the
> > key players in the bid.
>
> NU was slated to host an event--forget which one.
>
> Although it could have gone either way (i.e. been a bad thing or a good
> thing for the city on balance), I'm disappointed they didn't get it.
> Finishing 4th out of 4 is pretty sad as well.
>
> Tom
>
>
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