Olympic Darts Landing
Bid hits another bad stretch
By STEVE RHODES
Updated 1:19 PM CST, Tue, Jul 28, 2009
The city's effort to land the 2016 Olympics certainly has momentum going into the home stretch, but it's momentum in exactly the wrong direction for local Games organizers and advocates.
First, the fallout from Mayor Daley's open-ended commitment to fund the Games has shook up the populace so much that he's dispatching his team to community meetings in all 50 wards to repair the damage.
Second, the city council now has before it a proposed ordinance which would cap the city's financial commitment in a way that would seem to conflict in its entirety with the host city agreement demanded by the International Olympic Committee. (The council, fearing a repeat of the parking meter disaster, has already demanded an independent third party analyze the city's bid book.)
Third, the insurance policy promised by Chicago 2016 chief Pat Ryan to protect taxpayers has yet to be constructed.
And fourth, the United States Olympic Committee, whose unstable leadership certainly can't give the IOC a lot of confidence, has managed to further strain its already strained relationship with Olympic officials by announcing a new television network for the Games without their approval.
"That's not how a partnership should work," an IOC executive board member told the New York Times. "I guess this is their style of doing things."
Ouch.
"I'm sure Chicago is horrified," an Olympic historian told the Tribune. "I would be."
The IOC will decide in October who gets the 2016 Games.
On Tuesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he thought Madrid posed the biggest threat to Rio's bid.
Anything could still happen, of course, but Daley is clearly worried, begging critics on Wednesday to stop "throwing darts."
But maybe darts are the only weapons taxpayers have left.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Jul 9, 2009 8:43 AM CST
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