The Olympic Committee just got done selecting Rio by an absolute landslide over Chicago (well, they were fourth so over them and a few other cities) as the host for the 2016 Olympic Games. There has been considerable hubbub (yes, hubbub) over what kind of an impact Obama’s visit had or did not have on the selection team’s decision. A few things come up:
1.    Should Heads of State be involved at all?
2.    Was Obama a good ambassador?
3.    What are the Olympics about again???

There is a Reuters post this morning about one of the Chicago delegates who is questioning whether heads of state should be allowed to lobby for their or another country as part of the process. I consider myself a pretty well informed individual around the issues- I read the news and do research on my own- I consider it a responsibility to keep up with it.

For me, I thought that Obama flying to Copenhagen and giving a speech, then flying back was an isolated incident, like, he was really going out of his way to make it happen. It turns out that world leaders go and lobby on behalf of their countries all the time- Tony Blair is widely recognized as winning the bid for London in 2012, and this time around the top leaders of Spain, Denmark and Japan all visited the Olympic Committee as well- so it’s really not a big deal that Obama went there at all- it’s normal.

Was he an asset for the argument that Chicago should get the Olympics? That could be an entirely other argument, right? I can’t see him being anything but an asset, even if he didn’t really help them get better than last in the voting. The committee members talked about how popular he was, how many people were taking pictures and shaking his hand…

What I want to know is if he is going to fly out there and make a passionate plea around climate change, or maybe a passionate plea for forgiveness for the U.S. not signing some kind of climate change legislation into action- please forgive us for not making that happen, and you guys owe us one now because of that Olympic committee thing back in October, right?

Which brings me to my final thought: What are the Olympics about again? Amateur competition and promoting goodwill between normally separate competitors, right? Everything about the Olympics is just like professional sports, except that the people who participate and do the event don’t actually get paid- and to see world leaders flying in to get these Games to their country or their city, I wonder why they do it? For the money. It’s amazing money to get the Olympics in your city/ country, right? All the tourism, all the infrastructure, all the people who will be planning and building and cleaning just to make it happen. It appears the competition for the Games 8 years ahead of time is even more heated than the competition once the Games come up.