COPENHAGEN – Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes. Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But none of that mattered. Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story — of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent yearning, hoping, that the Olympics finally might come to them. And the International Olympic Committee was hooked.
Olympians, we'll see you on Copacabana beach in 2016. Let Carnival begin.
On a chilly Danish evening of high drama, the IOC on Friday sent the games of the 31st Olympiad to Brazil's bustling, fun-loving but crime-ridden city of beaches and mountains, romance and slums.
The IOC closed its eyes to the risks — the huge projected costs of the Rio Games, the concerns about how athletes will get around and where people will sleep — to focus on the reward of lighting the Olympic cauldron in one of the last corners of the globe yet to be bathed by its light.
"It is Brazil's time," said the country's charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Chicago was knocked out in the first round — in one of the most shocking defeats ever handed down by the committee of former Olympians, sports administrators, royals and other VIPs.
While blues legend Buddy Guy twanged "Sweet Home Chicago" in a promotional video the city played to the IOC, bad blood between the committee and its U.S. branch — they've had flare-ups over revenue sharing and lucrative broadcasting rights — proved to be a note of discord. IOC members said the slap to Chicago was more directed at the U.S. Olympic Committee than to the Windy City itself.
The win was decisive: Rio beat Madrid by 66 votes to 32.
Chicago got just 18 votes in the first round, with Tokyo squeezing into the second round with 22. Madrid was leading after the first round with 28 votes, while Rio had 26.
In the second round, Tokyo was eliminated with just 20 votes. Madrid got 29, qualifying it for the final round face-off with Rio, which by then already had a strong lead with 46 votes.
The indignity suffered by Chicago — long considered a front-runner — was such that some IOC members squirmed. Obama flew overnight from Washington to sell his adoptive hometown and its plans for Olympic competition on Lake Michigan's windy shores to the IOC. First lady Michelle Obama, with talk show host Oprah Winfrey and sports stars in tow, jetted in first and spent two days buttering up IOC members, an essential part of the secretive and unpredictable selection process.
IOC members seemed wowed, posing for photos with her and taking souvenir shots of the president with their cell phones. But, in the vote, Chicago was shunned.
Obama called Silva to congratulate him, but the nature of the loss still rang as a stinging anti-American rebuke. Close to half of the IOC's 106 members are Europeans.
"To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round is awful and totally undeserving," senior Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper said.
French IOC member Guy Drut said "an excess of security" for the Obamas unsettled some of his colleagues. He complained that he'd been barred from crossing the lobby of his hotel for security reasons, and he grumbled that "nothing has been done" to resolve the financial disputes between the IOC and the USOC.
Of Obama's performance, Drut said: "He didn't do too much. Michelle Obama was exceptional."
"This morning the city was closed because of Barack Obama," he added.
In Chicago, there was bewildered silence when IOC president Jacques Rogge announced: "The city of Chicago, having obtained the least number of votes, will not participate in the next round."
On Rio's Copacabana beach, where nearly 50,000 people roared when the winning city was announced, the party headed into the night.
Rio spoke to IOC members' consciences: the city argued that it was simply unfair that South America has never hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly.
"It is a time to address this imbalance," Silva told the IOC before it delivered its verdict. "It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country."
Madrid's surprising success in reaching the final round came after former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made a morbid appeal for the Spanish capital, reminding IOC members as he asked for their vote that, at age 89, "I am very near the end of my time."
Samaranch ran the IOC for 21 years before Rogge took over in 2001.
Beating three rich, more developed nations that had all previously held the games represented a giant, morale-boosting coup for Brazil. The emerging nation is bounding up the ranks of the world's biggest economies but still has millions of people living in poverty.
Like a football team before a big final, Rio's bid leaders and Silva held hands in silent prayer before walking out to deliver a flawless and impassioned presentation. A bid official said Silva's last words of encouragement were "let's stay calm, and stick with our plan."
Brazil's central bank governor reeled off impressive statistics about an economy predicted to be the world's fifth-largest by 2016. The state governor pledged that taxes would not be raised for the games and played down safety concerns. Computer-generated bird's-eye images of how venues will spread across the city, with sailing in the shadow of Sugar Loaf mountain and volleyball on Copacabana, provided the wow factor.
Then Silva delivered the knockout.
"Among the top 10 economies of the world, Brazil is the only country that has not hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games," he said. "For the Olympic movement, it will be an opportunity to feel the warmth of our people, the exuberance of our culture, the sun of our joy and it will also be a chance to send a powerful message to the whole world: The Olympic Games belong to all peoples, to all continents and to all humanity."
Silva, a bearded former union leader, disappeared into a huge group hug with the joyous Rio team after Rogge announced that the city had won. Football great Pele had tears in his eyes. Brazil will now hold the world's two biggest sporting events in the space of just two years: in 2014, it is hosting the World Cup.
"There was absolutely no flaw in the bid," Rogge said.
Now, Africa and Antarctica are the only continents never to have been awarded an Olympics.
"We have sent out a message that we want to go global," IOC member Gerhard Heiberg said.
Obama held out the enticing prospect of a Chicago games helping to reconnect the United States with the world after the presidency of George W. Bush. He told the IOC that the "full force of the White House" would be applied so "visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people."
An uncomfortable moment came during Chicago's presentation when an IOC member from Pakistan, Syed Shahid Ali, noted that going through U.S. customs can be harrowing for foreigners. Obama responded that he wanted a Chicago games to offer "a reminder that America at its best is open to the world."
But the IOC's last two experiences in the United States were bad: the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were sullied by a bribery scandal and logistical problems and a bombing hit the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
Former IOC member Kai Holm said the brevity of Obama's appearance — he was in and out in five hours — may have hurt Chicago.
"Too businesslike," Holm said. "It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect."
IOC members said Asian voters may have banded together, at Chicago's expense, in the first round in favor of Tokyo, which offered reassurances of financial security, with $4 billion already banked for the games.
"The whole thing doesn't make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote," Gosper said.
The last U.S. city to bid for the Summer Games, New York, did scarcely better. It was ousted in the second round in the 2005 vote that gave the 2012 Games to London.
Now, Chicago can only rue what might have been.
And Rio ... well, what an excuse for a party.
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They met on the internet. They fell in love. A spare parts seller, Kunle Bamidele was completely honest in his dealings with his Kentucky, US-based beau, Robin Martins, and their wedding recently in Ibadan was as topical as it was controversial. Nevertheless, the young man will soon jet out of the country to join his wife. Seye Adeniyi reports.
The couple kissing during their wedding.advertisement
He was castigating one of his apprentices for wrong-doing when this reporter got to his shop at Ile-Epo area of Odo-Ona, Abeokuta road, Ibadan, Oyo State.
He was so annoyed with the young male apprentice that he brought out the Sunday Tribune edition of 12th of July, 2009 to butress his admonitions to the boy, on the need for him to be truthful, dedicated to duty, and, above all, say the truth at all times.
“Look at this young man now (pointing at Kunle Bamidele’s picture featured in the Sunday Tribune newspaper of 12th July, 2009), he reaped the reward of being faithful, truthful and sincere, and that was why a white woman, an American for that matter, left her country for Nigeria to marry him, ‘’ he told the apprentice.
Many people thought it was not possible, some tagged it an “arrangeé wedding”, while some are still casting doubts on the unique matrimonial union that took place recently in the city of Ibadan between the duo. Alhaji Laide Eniola, a 70 year-old popular fashion designer at Odo-Ona, along Apata road, Ibadan, was privy to all that transpired during the wedding.
Robin Martin, a 41-yr-old Kentuckian, had travelled to Nigeria, some weeks ago, to wed Kunle Bamidele, a 32-year-old spare parts trader at the popular Gate Market, Ibadan.
According to the tailor, the wedding ceremony actually took place in his house at the Scout-Camp, along Challenge-Molete road, in Ibadan on July 11, 2009, after the registry wedding at the Mapo Registry hall.
On why the wedding festivities were not held at the Bamideles’ house, as was customary, he said Kunle’s father chose the Scout Camp venue to give the American some solace as it was modern and more comfortable than his own, adding that since he and the man were childhood friends, he had to oblige him.
The 41-year-old American woman from Kentucky, USA, arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday, July 8, 2009, and the wedding between her and Kunle took place on Saturday, July 11, 2009. She was accommodated, throughout her stay, at the tailor’s house.
But why the quick arrangement that eventually led to a wedding between the duo, considering the short-days intervals?
Alhaji Eniola has this to say: “Kunle and the American woman had been chatting with each other on the internet for a long time, before the woman agreed to visit him in Nigeria. What really impressed the Kentuckian was Kunle’s sincerity and truthfulness. The woman had used many things to test Kunle’s truthfulness, sincerity, love and faithfulness and, I tell you, the young man is not like other Nigerian youths who are fond of duping Europeans on the internet.’’
He noted that the flight ticket with which the woman travelled to Nigeria was sent to her by Kunle. The bride-to-be had, through the internet, sent the money (foreign currency) to Kunle, instructing him to help her purchase the flight ticket in Nigeria and send it to her, an assignment which Kunle carried out to the letter.
“How many Nigerian youths, especially the so called yahoo boys, can do such a thing? I know what many of these yahoo boys can do, and how they are creating a negative image for the country through their dubious activities on the internet. But Kunle Bamidele, now the legal husband of the Kentuckian, did not do that,” he emphasised.
The tailor also revealed to Nigerian Tribune that the white woman, who is a divorcee and a mother of two children in Kentucky, was also impressed with her Nigerian husband’s truthfulness and sincerity when Kunle showed her all the receipts/invoices he had used in purchasing every material she instructed asked him to get, preparatory to their wedding, including the receipt for the new generating set that was purchased before her arrival in Nigeria. Robin Martins also surprised many people, especially the people living around the Scout-Camp area of Ibadan, when she took delight in eating traditional foods like amala, fufu, eba, even ewedu, gbegiri and okro soups, without developing bowel discomfort during her stay in Ibadan.
He noted that many people had tried to discourage the woman from coming, and yet many others had told the family that the woman would not tolerate the facilities on ground, but she coped admirably well.
Concerning the traditional wedding gown (aso-oke), which the couple used for their wedding, the septuagarian also disclosed to the Nigerian Tribune that Kunle was given money to buy the material by his bride, adding that it was he who designed the attire for the couple.
‘’The newly-wedded coupled enjoyed their honeymoon in my house and, I tell you, she was impressed with Kunle’s “performance,” being a black man. She also confessed to me that what she saw and experienced in Nigeria was the entire opposite of all the negative reports she had heard about the country before coming to Nigeria,” the tailor told the Nigerian Tribune.
He added that the white woman told him that she was very comfortable in her country, as she presently had two or three companies of her own. But she had to divorce her former American husband because the man used to beat, maltreat, and often subjected her to inhuman treatments despite the fact that she had two children by him.
There was a mild drama inside the Mapo Registry hall during the wedding ceremony. The local government officials that conducted the wedding programme were amazed and highly impressed by the woman’s dancing steps. They were pleasantly surprised, especially when the Kentuckian began to lavish dollars on them, when the couple were called to come forward for thanksgiving.
Throughout her stay in Nigeria, Robin Martins Bamidele was able to acclamatize to Nigeria’s weather; she did not complain of any ailment or infections. But she kept abusing the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), for throwing the country into darkness.
Another drama that also ensued during the woman’s short stay in Nigeria, according to Alhaji Eniola, who hails from Ede, Osun State, was between the woman and the Embassy officials when she took her Nigerian husband there to get all the neccessary papers that would facilitate his smooth journey to Kentucky, USA.
The Embassy officials did not want to give Kunle clearance documents for the journey, hinging their excuses on their previous experiences with Nigerians. However, when the new bride shouted at them, Kunle was given all the necessary papers, and will soon be going to America to join his new heart-trob.
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