Rio de Janeiro Wins Bid for 2016 Olympics

Rio de Janeiro was elected host city of the 2016 Olympic Games on Friday, Oct. 2, bringing the Olympics to South America for the first time in the history of the Games.
Rio passionately welcomed the bid. "It will not just be Brazil's games but South America's. It will serve to inspire the 180 million young people on the continent. It is time to redress the balance. It is time to light the Olympic flame in a tropical country," said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
This year's International Olympics Committee meeting was held in Denmark; the candidates were Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro, with Chicago and Rio as the favorites. Everyone expected Chicago and Rio to go all the way, but against the odds, Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting with only 18 out of 98 votes.
There are several rounds of voting and after each vote the country with the lowest number of votes gets eliminated until there is only one country remaining. Rio won this year's bid with a vote of 66 to 32.
Candidates made their bids in an attempt to present his or her country in the best light. Chicago flew President Barack Obama into Denmark to address the IOC. and spent over $50 million dollars trying to bring the Olympics to the U.S. The Olympics have not been to the U.S. since the 1996 Atlanta games.
"I have no doubt that it was the strongest bid possible and I'm proud that I was able to come in and help make that case in person," said President Obama after the U.S. lost the bid, according to The New York Times.
Rio made a strong case by presenting a map of where the Olympic Games have been held all over the world, and South America was sparsely empty. Bringing the Olympics to South America would have also opened up an entirely new continent to the Games. "There was absolutely no flaw in the bid," said Jacque Rogge, President of the IOC.
No one can definitively say why Chicago was eliminated in the first round, when everyone predicted Chicago and Rio to go to the end. "Everybody was shocked at the result," said Rene Fasel of the IOC, according to The New York Times. The opinions on why the events carried out as they did vary.

-continued here

***
Yes, the 2016 Olypmics is not just for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil but for South America. I think this is what the Americans failed to see by criticizing Obama for pushing for the Chicago bid, when it's really for America.