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USOC Chairman: Chicago has work to do on the Olympics

US Olympic Committee (USOC) Chairman Peter Ueberroth issued his second highly critical and brutally honest assessment of Chicago's standing among the cities competing to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, bluntly placing the Second City "no where near first". Last year Chicago was able to secure the USOC's official endorsement to represent the US among the international contenders for the highly prestigious rights to host the Summer Games, but Ueberroth has maintained since shortly after that decision was announced that Chicago was "third or fourth" among the seven-nation field of contenders.

Rio de Janeiro is widely presumed to be the unspoken favorite among the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because no South American country has ever hosted the Olympics. Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley has certainly staked his immediate political fortunes on a successful campaign to secure the IOC's blessing, but strangely there has been little evidence of a municipal government that is willing or capable of doing what it takes to shore up Chicago's glaring disadvantages in terms of public transit and logistical feasibility.

Chicago is a beautiful, romantic and exceptionally clean metropolis which will boast the world's most brilliant skyline by decade's end, and yet the political brass at City Hall have glossed over the city's one critical weaknesses, transportation, and in doing so have perhaps squandered the best opportunity in a century to rebuild Midwestern infrastructure to 21st century standards. The US has already fallen too far behind our strategic competitors around the world, such as China, Brazil and the EU, all of whom had the luxury of learning from our mistakes when rebuilding their countries in the post-war era. If we squander this opportunity to catch back up, there is little hope for radical renovation of our nations badly dilapidated infrastructure anytime soon.

The US Olympic Committee (USOC) chairman Peter Uberroth told Mayor Daley that Chicago currently stands third or fourth in the race to get the 2016 Summer Games, behind Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid. Interestingly, Uberroth's advice would understandably leave a Chicago resident feeling as if the USOC chairman was a little out of touch with the way business is done in Chicago. Essentially Uberroth is telling the Chicago Olympic Committee to spend more time establishing friendships and embedding local interests in partnerships and long term commitments with countries that are highly represented on the International Olympic Committee board, which decides the fate of the Games in 2009.

To me this suggests that Mayor Daley is on exactly the right track, at least with regard to some of his initiatives, though he has a long way to go to make Chicago a truly undeniable front-runner in a battle that is likely to grow vicious as the months pass. The Chicago China Development Corporation is one great example of an initiative the city has recently undertaken that epitomizes exactly what Uberroth is talking about.

Chicago unveiled its new logo for its 2016 Olympic bid and I must say, it is a disappointment, at least to this interested observer. The original logo was forced out of the picture by the International Olympic Committee, which holds the exclusive rights to use of any images that use the torch, which was the essence of the city's original logo.