GOOD RIDDANCE OLYMPICS

 

“Look at any recent Olympic host city and you’ll find that the Games have left behind an ocean of red ink, not to mention a pile of useless velodromes and natatoriums.”

 

And so President Obama spent a day in Copenhagen for nothing: The 2016 Olympics will be held in Rio, not Chicago. Adding insult to injury, Obama’s adopted hometown didn’t even make it past the first ballot, being eliminated in the quick-fire round. 

Leaving aside the inevitable questions about how the Olympic loss will affect Obama — I keep waiting to see articles analyzing what Jay Leno’s sinking ratings mean for the presidency — I have mixed feelings about the decision. As a sports fan, part of me was rooting for Chicago to win: Brazil is a long way to fly just to see Greco-Roman checkers or whatever I might actually have a shot at getting tickets to. But as someone who’s studied past Olympic host cities’ experiences, I can safely say that losing the Olympics is a very, very good thing for Chicago.

While the Olympics like to sell themselves as a way to launch cities onto the world stage, their biggest accomplishment of late has been burning record-breaking amounts of money. Look at any recent Olympic host city — Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Atlanta, whatever that city in Spain was before Atlanta — and you’ll find that the Games have left behind an ocean of red ink, not to mention a pile of useless velodromes and natatoriums. As you may recall, when Mayor Bloomberg was stumping for the 2012 Games to come to New York, the highlights included a multibillion-dollar budget and a beach volleyball stadium in Williamsburg; I think we can all agree that if there’s one thing Williamsburg doesn’t need, it’s another big empty structure on the waterfront.

As for Chicago, I vacationed there this summer, and can vouch that it’s a terrific city, with museums and interesting neighborhoods and beautiful parks and beaches. Now, instead of spending the next seven years bulldozing neighborhoods to make way for a three-week sporting spectacle, Chicagoans — almost half of whom, if the latest polls are to be believed, were rooting against their city’s bid — can sit back and let Rio inherit all the bills and headaches. Brazil may have won the Olympic battle, but it’s about to find out it lost the war.

– Neil deMause writes alternate Mondays in this space. He can be contacted at demause.net and on Twitter @neildemause.

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