Tonight, they are wheeling out the closest thing the United States has to royalty when Oprah Winfrey will attend a private dinner for the members of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Evaluation Commission. Mike Roberts, the vice-chairman of Chicago’s bid, has called the television talk show host the “most influential person in the world.”
 

Coming from the former chairman and chief executive of McDonald’s that kind of hype should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt. Chicago may still have some way to go before they match what London did four years ago when they were bidding for the 2012 Olympics and the Evaluation Commission visited the capital and officials arranged for them to have a private dinner with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. But, nevertheless, an Obama-Winfrey double act is not a bad one if you are trying to impress the IOC.

Curiously, the one card that Chicago appears reluctant to play is how more than a century ago they were cheated out of hosting the Olympics. In 1901 they were originally awarded the 1904 Olympics, which were the first time the then fledging event had been due to be staged outside Europe, and began planning to welcome the world.
 

But it clashed with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and the organisers there would not accept another international event being held in the same time frame. The exposition organisation began to plan for its own sports activities, informing the Chicago officials that its own international sports events intended to eclipse the Olympic Games unless they were moved to St. Louis. The IOC finally decided to let President Theodore Roosevelt arbitrate the question, and he chose St. Louis. It was a decision that Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, went along with.

St. Louis organisers repeated the mistakes made at the 1900 Olympics in Paris. Competitions were reduced to a side-show of the World's Fair and were lost in the chaos of other, more popular cultural exhibits. David Francis, the president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, declined to invite anybody else to open the Games and, on July 1, 1904, did so himself in a scaled-down short and humdrum "ceremony".

 

Chicago's proposals for the Games were revolutionary at the time. They included one of the first proposals for a domed stadium and the organising committee recruited prominent local citizens, including civic leaders and diplomats, to help them put them on.

 

John MacAloon, a professor at the University of Chicago, believes that the course of Olympic history was changed dramatically by that decision to move the Games to St. Louis. "Had Chicago not given up its hard-won rights to the 1904 Olympic Games the history of the modern Olympic Movement would surely have been different," he said. "As it was, the Greek authorities had to step in with the 'interim Olympics of 1906' in order to save the nascent Olympic Movement from the disaster of St. Louis, caused by Chicago's decision to forsake the 1904 Games."
 

European tension caused by the Russo-Japanese War and the difficulty of getting to St. Louis kept many of the world's top athletes away. There were only 687 competitors, most of them from the United States, though Canada sent a good-sized contingent. Only 12 countries were represented.

 

Things will undoubtedly be very different if Chicago beats Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo to the right to host the 2016 Games. This is Chicago's third bid to host the Olympics since those ill-fated events of 1901. But previous attempts to host the 1952 and 1956 Olympics both failed.

 

There is an discernable feeling in the air here this time, though, that Chicago's time has come. The election of Obama has helped lift the city's self-esteem and it is demonstrating a new-found confidence as the world's attention focuses on it. If someone from Chicago can become the first black leader of the planet's most powerful country then surely anything is possible, seems to be the mood among people here. And Chicagoans would probably feel a sense of poetic justice if it is the US President that swings it their way more than a century after one of his predecessors had helped take it away from them.

 

Duncan Mackay is the publisher and editor of insidethegames.com. He was the 2004 British Sports Journalist of the Year and was the athletics correspondent of The Guardian for 11 years. He has correctly forecast the winner of the last four Olympic Games.

 
Comments

This city would really embrace this event. I hope we get it.
By Helen Stevenson, Chicago

6 April 2009 at 16:37pm

I want to be on the IOC committee...wined and dined - fly around
the world to be fawned and treated like royalty.
City leaders will rape and pillage their own citizens to impress
you...they spend lots of money (in Daley's case millions) by
taxing their citizens to impress you - for a couple days.
Lack of protesters? The IOC had been warned and then said (on the
news last week) they were used to protesters and basically ignore
them.
There has to be a better way to have the Olympics than this
unfair debacle to innocent citizens...maybe a plan and then a
vote?
By Who are the IOC?

6 April 2009 at 16:42pm

Is this for the Winter Olympics? It's freezing here.
By David G, Chicago

6 April 2009 at 16:45pm

Even the gods don't want the Olympics here - glad we had lousy
weather for their trip - Daley is paying no attention to the
citizens of this city, he's just doing whatever he feels like and
the taxpayers will bear the burden 
nancy
Chicago, IL
By Lady Chicago

6 April 2009 at 16:53pm

The Olympics will provide thousands of jobs immediately upon
award. 20% of all construction workers are unemployed. Once the
current crop of bildings under construction finish this number
will skyrocket. Also affected are all material suppliers,
transporters and on and on. If we are concerned about money,
let's put people back to work and not on unemployment.

So far, it has all been financed by private donations- not tax
dollars.
By 2016 supporter, Chicago

6 April 2009 at 16:57pm

The Olympics is one of the biggest marketing venues in the world.
The Games attract people around the world and among them are
potential residents, future students, business dealmakers, etc.
The Barcelona Games is a great model for Chicago. After 1992, the
city still enjoys the benefits from the games, especially tourist
money and population growth.
By Olympic fan, Chicago

6 April 2009 at 21:57pm

Why do people keep referring to Chicago being in the Mid-West
when it is clearly not.
By Confused Brit

9 April 2009 at 22:51pm

Ever wonder about why we call things what we do? For example, we
all know the Far East, but why is there no Far West? Seems like
Hawaii would be in the Far West.

And why is Chicago in the Mid-West? Mid-West should be CO, WY,
MT, maybe even AZ. Illinois should be Mid-East at the most, but
certainly not Mid-West. And for that matter, how come there ain't
no such thing as Mid-East?

These are things inquiring minds wonder about.
By Collier, CA

10 April 2009 at 09:32am

That whole mid-west thing has me puzzled as well.

C'mon. It's either mid, or west. Get over it.

I'm with you, Collier. Chicago? North, if anything.
By Steve Bricks, South Los Angeles

10 April 2009 at 09:34am

I think it's one of those things that just goes back so far it
doesn't make sense any more. In the early days of our nation,
Illinois probably seemed like "the west".

Reminds me of the old story about the founding of Chicago. Some
northern Atlantic guys got together and said, "you know, I just
love the sub-freezing temperatures and floundering snow drifts
here, but it just isn't windy enough for me" and so they headed
for Chicago.
By Nigel, Toronto

10 April 2009 at 09:52am

It's probably about as logical as why your little island in the
middle of nowhere insists on calling itself "Great" when it
clearly isnt.
By Proud American

10 April 2009 at 10:10am

Scene: a bus, San Diego

Local lady: So where did you grow up?
My (Hong Kong-born) friend: The Far East.
Local lady (to another local lady): Hey Dawn, he's from New
York.

It all depends on your perspective
By true story

10 April 2009 at 20:14pm

The term West was applied to the region in the early years of the
country. In 1789, the Northwest Ordinance was enacted, creating
the Northwest Territory, which was bounded by the Great Lakes and
the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Because the Northwest Territory
lay between the East Coast and the then-far-West, the states
carved out of it were called the "Northwest". In the early 19th
century, anything west of the Mississippi River was considered
the West, and the Midwest was the region east of the Mississippi
and west of the Appalachians. In time, some users began to
include Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri in the Midwest. With the
settlement of the western prairie, the new term Great Plains
States was used for the row of states from North Dakota to
Kansas. Later, these states also came to be considered Midwest by
some.
The states of the "old Northwest" are now called the "East North
Central States" by the United States Census Bureau and the "Great
Lakes" region by some of its inhabitants, whereas the states just
west of the Mississippi and the Great Plains states are called
the "West North Central States" by the Census Bureau. Today
people as far west as the prairie sections of Colorado, Wyoming,
and Montana sometimes identify themselves with the term
Midwest.[7] Some parts of the Midwest are still referred to as
"Northwest" for historical reasons – for example, Minnesota-based
Northwest Airlines and Northwestern University in Illinois – so
the Northwest region of the country is called the "Pacific
Northwest" to make a clear distinction.
By Let me google that for you

11 April 2009 at 01:02am