Bring Home the Games, Obama

For some reason, Obama is getting some heat for lobbying on behalf of Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Not sure why this could be a bad thing. I think it would be great if Chicago were awarded the games. If ever I was going to have an opportunity to see an Olympics in person, this would be it. In fact, I'm not positive, but South Bend could possibly be a site because of our artificial white water course (which has been used before in Olympic trials). If anything, I think it would be cool to see the torch relay come nearby and to go see that.

A few years ago, Paris was the frontrunner for the 2012 games but was upset by London. A lot of the credit was given to Tony Blair for his lobbying on behalf of that city. So, if Obama can bring the games to us in 2016, more power to him.

However, I'm thinking that Rio de Janeiro is going to get the games. South America has never been awarded an Olympics and recent history has the U.S. doing pretty good securing the games with Lake Placid (1980); Los Angeles (1984); Atlanta (1996); and Salt Lake City (2002). The other cities in the running are Madrid and Tokyo. I would think Madrid would be a long shot since Barcelona just had them recently. Tokyo would probably be the long-shot upset if they won.