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Exclusive: How Rio won its bid
to host the 2016 Olympics
Friday, 02 October 2009
By David Owen in Copenhagen
October 2 - If anyone harboured
lingering doubts over whether
the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) made the right choice
in the Danish capital today,
they evaporated within seconds
of the start of the victorious
Rio de Janeiro press conference.
The atmosphere of exuberance before the massed
ranks of the world’s television cameras was so
overpowering that even Jacques Rogge, the legendarily sober
IOC boss, cracked a smile.
As the host-city contract was signed, the aisles
rang out with song as supporters gave vent to
months – in some cases years – of bottled-up tension.
Let’s just say it was no surprise when some
Let’s just say it was no surprise when some
Brazilian geezer took it upon himself to scatter
golden confetti over proceedings.
Yet the main lesson from Rio’s win had little to do
Yet the main lesson from Rio’s win had little to do
with its global reputation as a good-time town.
The Brazilians had done their homework and
The Brazilians had done their homework and
prepared mightily for this special moment.
Plus they had endured disappointments
Plus they had endured disappointments
along the way.
In the race for the 2012 Games, Rio
In the race for the 2012 Games, Rio
didn’t make it onto the shortlist.
What they did do was react to the
What they did do was react to the
defeat in exactly the right way.
As Rogge observed tonight, Carlos Nuzman
As Rogge observed tonight, Carlos Nuzman
and his team "remained humble".
He went on: "Rio wanted to listen, to correct
He went on: "Rio wanted to listen, to correct
the shortcomings.
"They learnt a lot."
"They learnt a lot."
Two elements in particular transformed them
from also-rans into winners in what was the
toughest-ever Olympic hosting race with the
exception of that contest for 2012.
First, they gathered critical experience in the
complex disciplines of staging multi-sports events
by hosting the Pan-American Games two years ago.
This was touched on by Sergio Cabral,
Governor of Rio de Janeiro state, when he alluded
to a "new model of policing" introduced for the Games
– an innovation that helped to address one
of the bid’s possible weaknesses: Rio’s
reputation as a relatively crime-ridden metropolis.
They also signed up the Government,
in the shape of the irrepressibly ebullient
President Lula, for the long haul.
His appearance in Copenhagen contrasted
strongly with the Air Force One-powered
flit undertaken by President Barack Obama.
The time and energy Lula devoted to getting
The time and energy Lula devoted to getting
under the skin of the Olympic Movement
gave him a markedly better feeling than
his US counterpart for which strings to pull
and buttons to press to get the result he wanted from
this endlessly fascinating electorate.
Having addressed these two basics
Having addressed these two basics
– and being imbued in the form of Nuzman
and Joao Havelange, the longest-serving IOC
member, with two senior figures the Movement
knew it could do business with - Rio was in
a much stronger position to tweak the IOC’s
sense of guilt about never having taken its
sporting pageant to the South American sub-continent.
Lula pressed this as far as he dared in the
Lula pressed this as far as he dared in the
presentation, urging the IOC to "light the
Olympic cauldron in a tropical country".
This message eventually hit home, as shown
by the emphatic margin of victory in Rio’s run-off against Madrid.
As Richard Carrión, the IOC member
As Richard Carrión, the IOC member
from Puerto Rico who is one of the body’s
leading business strategists, observed
straight after Rio’s victory was declared:
"I don't think it is anything to do with heads of state.
"I think Rio captured the moment with
the idea of bringing the Games to
South America for the first time…So kudos to Rio."
A second fundamental thrust to its
campaign right up to the finishing-line
was to underline time and time again not,
as you might have expected, Rio’s legendary
status as a party town, but that Brazil, unlike in
days gone by, was now a sound financial bet.
Cabral took pains to emphasise that the
government would subsidise the organizing
committee to the tune of $700 million (£439 million).
(The figure is underlined and typed in
bold in my copy of Cabral’s text.)
In this context, the inclusion of Central Bank
Governor Henrique Meirelles in the
presentation team was a master-stroke.
He had the gravitas to talk about Brazil’s
He had the gravitas to talk about Brazil’s
booming economy with far more authority
than the incorrigibly bullish Lula could have mustered.
Perhaps the message to the United States
Olympic Committee should be that next time
the country bids, the President should be
accompanied on Air Force One by
Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve President.
In retrospect, though they appeared to be
closing in the final weeks of the campaign
– and though their first-round elimination was
met with gasps of astonishment – Chicago
left it until far too late to start singing
from the IOC’s song-sheet.
Though the bid was technically as sound
as any ever mounted by a US city, too many sources
of friction had emerged in the course
of a long campaign for it to do itself justice.
Ultimately, not even a bravura performance
by the First Lady could undo the damage.
In this sense, the biggest message from tonight’s
result is that it is becoming nearly impossible
for even the world's only superpower to win a race
of this calibre coming from a long way
behind in the finishing straight.
There may be no stopping them now.
Brazil is already staging the 2014 World Cup.
And there was talk from some bright spark
in that exultant final conference of a
Winter Olympic bid some time after 2016.
In their current mood, the ice-bound cities
of the world must hope he was joking.
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