On the 255th day of his presidency (Friday, Oct. 2, 2009), Obama will be in Copenhagen, Denmark, telling the members of the International Olympic Committee why the 2016 Summer Olympics must be in Chicago.
Experts agree that Obama's support for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid will be critical and that his presence in Copenhagen could easily win the Olympics for Chicago. Former British prime minister Tony Blair's charismatic presentations were said to have led the IOC to pass over Paris, which seemed to have the leading bid after New York City's attempt to get the Games collapsed, and give the 2012 Olympics to London.
Chicago's competition for the 2016 Games includes Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo. Obama, who appeared at a downtown Chicago rally in support of the bid in June shortly after he won the Democratic nomination, could have an even greater impact on the IOC than Blair did, according to Olympics experts.
"He will be the rock star of the Copenhagen meeting," observes Allen Sanderson, a professor of sports economics at the University of Chicago. "We saw the crowd he drew in Berlin, and he will remain in the glow of an historic election triumph when he asks for IOC votes."
In late July, some 200,000 people attended an Obama speech in front of Berlin's Victory Column, designed in part to demonstrate his desire to improve America's image in Europe and the rest of the world.
Japanese Olympic officials already have expressed their concern that Obama could turn the tide in favor of Chicago when the IOC votes in October.
"Mr. Obama is popular and good at speeches, so things could get tough for Japan," said Tomiaki Fukuda, a senior Japanese Olympic Committee board member.
An Olympics in Obama’s home city of Chicago in the late summer of 2016 would be a grand finale for an Obama presidency that would be about to wind down if he were re-elected to a second term.
Source: ESPN.com
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