Chicago Herald-American

Chicago's stunning first-round elimination in the 2016 Summer Games voting was even worse than I thought. Not only did it render useless the time, effort, money and emotion put into the bid, but it apparently didn't even matter. Had Chicago doubled it's effort, the result would have been the same, thanks to -- as the Tribune's Olympics expert Phil Hersh put it, "the quirky politics of Olympic voting."

(With that in mind, who are we in Chicago to complain about quirky politics? We're the kings of quirky politics, from the bowels of City Hall to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. When it comes to crediblity, the members of the International Olympic Committee are neck-and-neck with aldermen in the City Council.)

But quirky it is. Tokyo's bid, which was considered a lock for last place, received 22 votes in the first round when there were four candidates, but only 20 in the second round when there were only three. Obviously, some members voted for Tokyo simply to oust Chicago and once that deed was done went to Rio de Janeiro or Madrid. That's not the first time that's happened. In fact, it happens almost every time.

So I can't help but agree with the Tribune's David Haugh, who agreed with Mayor Daley in this column that Chicago should back off bidding for the 2020 Olympics. "This inexplicably early exit makes it silly and wrong to start talking about [a 2020 bid]," he wrote.

Why invest the time, money and emotion in another bid when the rationale for determining host cities lacks transparency? And they call Chicago corrupt?

The IOC process remains too blurry for anyone in Chicago to have 2020 vision. The fire in our eyes won't allow it anyway.

What Went Wrong?

From Sporting News Today:

"Olympic sources said that Chicago's early exit stemmed from a concerted effort by Madrid and Rio to steer votes to Tokyo in order to push Chicago out of the first round. There was also a lot of buzz inside IOC circles that working with a Chicago organizing committee would have been more difficult than it was worth."

From the Chicago Tribune:

"A number of observers were left cold by the non-Obama aspects of the [Chicago] presentation.

"Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, author of Olympic reference books and a TV consultant during recent games, minced no words in summing up Chicago's final presentation.

"Without the Obamas, Chicago had nothing," he said.

 From the Chicago Sun-Times:

State Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago) said she saw firsthand the resentment against America five years ago when she was in Rio de Janeiro. "I feel in my gut that this vote today was political and mean-spirited," she said.

"I travel a lot. ... I thought we had really turned a corner with the election of President Obama. People are so much more welcoming of Americans now. But this isn't the people of those countries. This is the leaders still living with outdated impressions of Americans."