Obama will join Olympic bid team in Denmark

That would be First Lady Michelle Obama, not President Obama, signing on for next month's trip to Denmark to help Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.

"We are very pleased to confirm that First Lady Michelle Obama will be a lead member of the Official Chicago 2016 Delegation for the upcoming International Olympic Committee Session in Copenhagen, Denmark," said Patrick Ryan, Chicago 2016's chairman and CEO.

"As a lifelong Chicagoan, the First Lady is uniquely qualified to share with members of the IOC the passion and enthusiasm of our city for sport and the Olympic and Paralympic movement."

Just a few words of advice for the bid team. Don't make fun of the food of the competing countries, as strange as it may sound.

Why? Jacques Chirac, then the French president, in 2005 jokingly ripped British food on the eve of the vote for the 2012 Summer Games, reportedly saying: "You can't trust people who cook as badly as that."

His comments pulled him into a media firestorm and actually became an issue for several days. And that was before the days of Twitter.

So Chicagoans  -- hands off the culinary efforts of Madrid and Toyko. Kind of hard to diss tapas and miso soup, though.

-- Lisa Dillman

How many medals will U.S. win at Vancouver? 'A lot'

CHICAGO -- Way to go out on a limb, U.S. Olympic Committee!

The USOC on Thursday kicked off its pre-Olympic media summit, in which prospective Vancouver Olympians meet the media for photos, interviews, etc.

Its opening event was a USOC leadership press conference in which the leaders were asked to predict how many medals Team USA will take home from the Vancouver Winter Games in February.

At least they were consistent in their evasiveness.

"A lot," said Mike Plant, chef de mission for the U.S. team.

"We're not going to make a prediction on medal counts," said Mike English, chief of sport performance for the USOC. "We're on track. We're going to be very competitive."

U.S. athletes won 25 medals at the last Winter Games at Turin in 2006, nine gold, nine silver and seven bronze. That ranked second in the unofficial medals table behind Germany, which won 11 gold, 12 silver and six bronze.

Crime more than 'public safety challenges' for Rio 2016 bid

 

A police officer escorts a man shielding a child and two other civilians trying to reach safety after police intervened in an April 2007 gun battle between drug traffickers in the Morro da Mineira shantytown of Rio de Janeiro, where 13 people died. Two similar incidents occurred in Rio this week. Photo credit:  Ricardo Moraes / Associated Press)

About 24 hours before the International Olympic Committee's release on Wednesday of its evaluation commission report on the four finalists to host the 2016 Summer Games, a shootout between police and robbers described as drug traffickers forced the authorities to shut down a main artery near Rio de Janeiro's international airport for five to 15 minutes until gunfire stopped, depending on which newspaper report you read.

One major newspaper, O Globo, (the story linked is in Portuguese) said many motorists were forced to hide behind their cars or try to flee by making U-turns into oncoming traffic. The newspaper also said the suspects tried to throw a grenade at the police.

A day after the IOC evaluators' report euphemistically called crime in Rio "public safety challenges" that the city has addressed in a way "already showing positive results," the newspaper Folha reported that a gun battle between police SWAT teams cracking down on drug traffickers in a shantytown (favela) on Rio's south side led to the closing of three schools and two child care centers as a safety measure.

Such shootouts, involving either the police and criminals, or rival drug gangs fighting each other in the favelas, are not uncommon in Rio. (For proof, put the words "tiroteio" and "Rio" into the search mechanisms of either Google or YouTube.)

USOC boss shoots down would-be vultures circling Chicago bid

The U.S. Olympic Committee took a potshot Monday at the cities circling Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid like vultures.

Stephanie Streeter, the USOC's acting chief executive, issued a "Statement of USOC Commitment to Chicago 2016.''

That was prompted by recent stories, which drew attention on some Olympic news sites, suggesting Tulsa, Okla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Minneapolis; Detroit and Birmingham, Ala., are thinking about bids for the 2020 Summer Games. Such putative bids, preposterous at face value (The Tulsa Olympics?  Riiight...), would be out of the question if Chicago was selected the 2016 host on Oct. 2.

Last winter, the USOC had to tamp down interest in Denver for a 2018 Winter Olympic bid, which also seemingly depended on Chicago's failure. Former USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said in March: "All our attention is focused on Chicago and supporting its bid.''

(As it turns out, a 2018 winter bid would have been impossible for a U.S. city, because the IOC has set an Oct. 15 deadline for national Olympic committees to submit the name of a candidate, and the USOC could not be evaluating winter bids while working for Chicago's.)

Numbers game: IOC would be taxed without NBC revenues

Want to know why the International Olympic Committee is backing NBC in its dispute with the U.S. Olympic Committee over the U.S. Olympic Network?

 

It is pretty clear from the numbers in the IOC's 2008 tax filing.

 

Tripp Mickle of Sports Business Journal first posted information about the filing Tuesday. His story emphasized the IOC's $383.3 million profit on a record $2.4 billion revenue for the fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, 2008, noting it was 68% greater than the $228.6 million profit from the previous Summer Olympic year, 2004.

 

The revenue figure that struck me was $1.73 billion in global TV rights for the Beijing Olympics.

 

What the filing wasn't required to say is NBC paid $894 million of that -- a little more than half the total.

USOC words, actions, attitude do Chicago Olympic bid no favors

Since the April day in 2007 the U.S. Olympic Committee announced it had selected Chicago over Los Angeles as the U.S. candidate for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the USOC has done Chicago few favors.

In fact, USOC words and actions over the last year have possibly undermined Chicago's bid and made a mockery of the USOC mantra of an "unprecedented partnership" between the national Olympic committee and a bid city.

 

It began last October, when Peter Ueberroth, in his final public speech as USOC chairman, rebuked the arguments of International Olympic Committee members critical of the USOC's stance in a revenue sharing dispute with the IOC. Ueberroth also reminded everyone in no uncertain that the U.S. corporations still contribute more than 60%of IOC revenues.

 

Chicago 2016 had no advance warning of what Ueberroth would say, which was certain to offend some 2016 voters, no matter if  his points were valid.

IOC member Cinquanta: Chicago the favorite

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Ottavio Cinquanta of Italy is unsparing in his praise of U.S. contributions to sport.

That is among the reasons why Cinquanta, an International Olympic Committee member and president of the International Skating Union, likes the Chicago bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

"To me, Chicago is the favorite,''  Cinquanta said Thursday. "Why? The dossier is excellent and, for me, yet again, it is a matter of the U.S. contribution to sport. The U.S. has given [the world] athletes, organization, television and innovation in competition.

"The candidatures are from cities, but the cities are in countries, and what Chicago's country has done for sport in general over the years is very important.''

Cinquanta said his IOC colleagues have been impressed by a change in U.S. attitude toward the world.

A plus for Chicago: IOC-USOC dispute has calmed

LAUSANNE,  Switzerland -- Chicago's Olympic committee certainly had to feel good about one question that wasn't asked after presenting its bid plans Wednesday to International Olympic Committee members.

The ongoing revenue-sharing dispute between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee did not come up, according to IOC member Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, who has been involved for three years in negotiations on this issue.

To Heiberg, that means the members have accepted the agreement announced in late March for a new framework to the negotiations.

"I have not had any IOC member come to me and say, 'This was not right. You should have done it differently,' '' Heiberg said Thursday. "On the contrary, they have said it is fine that this has been put off until after the [2016 host city] election on Oct. 2 so it doesn't interfere, which is what I wanted to achieve.  I haven't had anybody talking to me negatively about this.''

 

The fractious negotiations had become a negative for Chicago's bid.

No Games Chicago shows up at IOC's door, bearing books

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Three delegates for No Games Chicago, a group opposed to the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, showed up at International Olympic Committee headquarters Tuesday evening with 50 copies of a book titled "The No Games Chicago Book of Evidence for the International Olympic Committee.''

Journalists from media outlets in Spain and Brazil helped No Games carry 50 copies of the book into the building, apparently unconcerned how that looked given that their countries have cities (Madrid and Rio de Janeiro) bidding against Chicago for the 2016 Summer Games.

IOC communications director Mark Adams told No Games delegate Tom Tresser that the IOC would accept the books, a compilation of reprinted news clippings.  Adams then took Tresser aside for a private meeting.

Adams said he assured Tresser that IOC President Jacques Rogge would get a copy of the No Games book but that it was "not very likely'' he could fulfill Tresser's two other requests: a meeting with Rogge and a chance to sit in on Chicago 2016's Wednesday presentation to the IOC members.

IOC official downplays Chicago selling point

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, one of the International Olympic Committee’s leading money men, seemed to minimize the impact of a Chicago selling point when he said today that sponsorship and marketing possibilities would not and should not affect the race for the 2016 Summer Games.

"I don’t think commercial aspects will play a great role here,’’ Heiberg said.  "I’m the IOC marketing director, and I’m not going to them [the four candidate cities] asking what kind of sponsorships we can get and what kind of TV deals we can get. I would like to keep commercial aspects out of the race as much as possible.’’

Heiberg’s statements, made to a small group of reporters outside IOC headquarters, came a day before each of the bid cities makes a 45-minute presentation to the IOC members.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune last week, Chicago 2016 CEO Patrick Ryan said he would cite commercial aspects during the presentation.