October 2, 2009 – Expecting to revel in the news
that the city had been awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics, thousands of
Chicagoans pack the Daley Center plaza.
It is not to be. After a three-year
effort in which thousands of volunteers participated and into which 72 million
dollars in donations had been poured, the news that Chicago is out of the
running is delivered by 10:15 a.m.
Chicago never even makes it to the second round of voting despite a
last-minute plea from President Barack Obama and lobbying of the members of the
International Olympic Committee by Oprah Winfrey. Mayor Richard M. Daley, who had worked as
hard as anyone to make Chicago the Olympic city, said, “We’ve come on a long
journey, but the city is better for it . . . Sure, you have tears, you get
disappointed – you’re human like anyone else.” So . . . it was on to Rio in 2016. Rio without tears.
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