Chicago’s Olympics bid leaders weren’t the only ones who mistakenly assumed that the race for the 2016 games would be a showdown with Rio de Janeiro.
Many of the International Olympic Committee voters who said they would support Chicago likely threw their first-round votes to the three other competing cities, Chicago 2016 CEO Patrick G. Ryan told Executives’ Club of Chicago members. Many of those members had written checks to support the bid.
Chicago ended up losing in a shockingly lopsided first-round vote, garnering only 18 of the 94 votes.
“Here’s where the miscalculation came: People who committed to (voting for) us thought, ‘Chicago is strong enough, they don’t need me until the second round,’ ” Mr. Ryan said Tuesday morning at the Sheraton Chicago hotel, in his first local public appearance since Friday’s vote in Copenhagen. “It’s not a cop-out. It’s just reality.”
The bigger factor in Chicago’s loss is that the IOC was ready to take the games to South America for the first time, a gesture not unlike the effort that brought the games to Beijing in 2008.
“Once the leadership of the IOC thought going to South America was a risk worth taking . . . it’s judgment made: People say they’re ready,” Mr. Ryan said.
In hindsight, the signs were unmistakable that the IOC wanted to extend its brand to South America, one of two continents that have never hosted the games. The IOC overcame concerns about Rio’s crime, infrastructure and other issues that led it to bypass the Brazilian city’s two previous bids.
Mr. Ryan pointed out that Doha, Qatar, which would have been the first Arab site for the Olympics, placed fourth in the technical evaluations, ahead of Rio, before the IOC made its final cut of candidate cities in June 2008. When the IOC released its final evaluation report after visiting the final four — Chicago, Rio, Tokyo and Madrid — there was little mention of Rio’s challenges, even crime.
Several longtime Olympics observers said changes at the U. S. Olympic Committee in the months before Friday’s vote cost Chicago dearly with the IOC, reigniting resentment over the outsize share of television revenue the U.S. receives from the Olympics. A surprise announcement in July by the USOC that it would launch its own TV network, without approval from the IOC, only aggravated the matter. The IOC had sought to ease the tension in the spring by delaying negotiations over future revenue sharing until after the vote.
“Obviously, there were too many people who said they accepted that (resolution), but obviously didn’t,” Mr. Ryan said. “That was a Hatfield-and-McCoy deal before we got into (the bidding).”
Mr. Ryan, who founded Chicago-based insurance brokerage Aon Corp., had little appetite for reliving the loss Tuesday. Like Mayor Richard M. Daley, who also addressed the breakfast meeting of business leaders, he didn’t point fingers.
“Was it worth it? The answer is a resounding yes,” he said of the three-year, $77-million effort to land the games. “Chicago has taken its rightful place as a global city.”
He said other legacies include the redevelopment of the former Michael Reese Hospital site, which will go forward, though the plans and timetable are unclear. And he said World Sport Chicago, a non-profit effort to involve youth in sports, will continue as a separate organization.
“If you don’t try, you fail,” said Mr. Daley, who praised Mr. Ryan for his commitment in leading the bid, even as the mayor laid the groundwork to rally business leaders to the next civic cause. “We will take this energy and use it for other purposes, such as our schools, crime or economic development.”