President Barack Obama reflected on Chicago’s unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Olympics during an interview that was published recently in New York Magazine.
Obama flew to Copenhagen in 2009 with the bid committee, because “everybody thought that if I flew out there we had a good chance of getting it.” But Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting, and Rio was later awarded the 2016 Games.
“I think we’ve learned that IOC’s decisions are similar to FIFA’s decisions: a little bit cooked,” Obama said. “We didn’t even make the first cut, despite the fact that, by all the objective metrics, the American bid was the best.