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Chicago Loses Olympics Bid; May Still Get Boondoggles, Graft (Update: Rio Gets The Gig)

By Roy Edroso Fri., Oct. 2 2009 at 12:06 PM
Categories: Events, Featured, Sports, The Money Trail
olympicrings.jpg
Chicago has dodged a bullet, being eliminated in the first round from 2016 Olympics consideration. (Tokyo is also out; Madrid and Rio de Janeiro remain in the running.) The Times says not to worry -- sometimes a loss is almost as good as a win. How so? Jay Kriegel, director of the New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics, says that even that failure "left an extraordinarily positive impact" on the city, as some of the boondoggles inspired by the bid have persisted. This obviously doesn't include the West Side Jets stadium disaster, but Kriegel mentions with pride the new Mets and Yankees stadiums, which were of course mainly a source of city revenue drain and graft. Congratulations, Chicago! When the game is rigged, everyone's a winner.

Update: Rio has been named the host city. Obviously, as rightbloggers suggested, the committee eschewed Chicago on account of its crime rate, and went with a safer jurisdiction.

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