IOC Official: Obama, FTW!

By Kevin Robinson in News on May 10, 2009 6:10PM

With the IOC Evaluation committee out of Chicago and on to other conquests, we've been granted a (brief) reprieve from the grandstanding, outrage, promises and protests that come with the city's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. But come October, we may find ourselves in the midst of more drama.

Speaking with the Irish Times, International Olympic Committee member Patrick Hickey broke down the bids of the candidate cities, and their chances come October 2:

"The three other cities all have fantastic bids. The Tokyo bid is superb, probably the best of all. Madrid has most of the Olympic infrastructure in place, a great transport system as well. Rio has a big advantage too in that the Olympics have never gone to a South American city, and it's probably about time they did. But Barack Obama is going to show up in Copenhagen in October. He'll work the room for about 20 minutes and that will probably be enough to swing it for Chicago. The same as Tony Blair swung it for London.

"And could you imagine [Irish politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Dublin constituency] Gay Mitchell talking about Dublin hosting the Olympics now?"