When Rio de Janeiro was elected host city for the 2016 Olympic Games on Friday, the room where its bid team gathered turned into a boisterous party with members in uniform navy or moss green blazers hugging, dancing, crying and waving Brazilian flags. The bid leader, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, yelled, “We did it! We did it!”
io and Chicago had gone into the day considered the favorites, ahead of Tokyo and Madrid. But by the time Rio was chosen by the International Olympic Committee to become the first South American city to host the Olympics, the Chicago delegation and its star-studded supporters were nowhere in sight.
They had already left the building.
Despite the support of President Obama, who flew in specifically to address the I.O.C. voters, Chicago finished last, out of the running in the first round of voting, with a paltry 18 of a total 94 votes. Tokyo received 22, with Rio getting 26 and Madrid 28. In each round, until one city gains a majority, the low vote-getter is eliminated. After Chicago was tossed aside, nearly all of its votes went straight to Rio in the second round. In the third, after Tokyo was eliminated, Rio won handily, 66-32.
The chance to bring the Olympics to a continent that had never hosted the Games worked in Rio’s favor. During its presentation, the bid team showed a graphic of the world and marked all the places that have held an Olympics. South America was glaringly bare.
| 2016 Summer Olympics bidding results | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City | NOC | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | ||
| Rio de Janeiro |  Brazil | 26 | 46 | 66 | ||
| Madrid |  Spain | 28 | 29 | 32 | ||
| Tokyo |  Japan | 22 | 20 | — | ||
| Chicago |  United States | 18 | — | — | ||
“There was absolutely no flaw in the bid,” the I.O.C. president, Jacques Rogge, said.
Chicago officials had worked nearly four years and spent nearly $50 million to bring the Summer Olympics to the United States for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Games. There were many possible explanations for Chicago’s spectacular failure, but little consensus.
Some pointed to the regional bloc voting in the treacherous first round. Others said some voters, assuming Chicago was a lock to advance because of the presence of Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, might have taken their early votes elsewhere. Many also blamed the rocky relationship between the United States Olympic Committee and the I.O.C.
Others said there was no explaining it.
“Everybody was shocked at that result,” said Rene Fasel, an I.O.C. member from Switzerland, regarding Chicago’s first-round ouster. “Everybody expected Chicago and Rio, everybody. It was really strange, and I feel really sorry. If it would have been Chicago and Rio in the end, it would have been much closer.”
Anita DeFrantz, one of two I.O.C. members from the United States, said she could not believe how the vote unfolded, particularly after the Obamas’ visit. “I hate the fact that these elegant people were here and then our country got treated that way,” she said.
Beyond showing an apparent indifference to the United States’ star power, the I.O.C. vote was interpreted as a repudiation of the U.S.O.C., which has been in upheaval over the past year and has struggled to gain a favorable standing within the I.O.C.
“It was a defeat for the U.S.O.C., not for Chicago,” said Denis Oswald, an I.O.C. member from Switzerland.
Mr. Oswald said that 10 to 15 fellow I.O.C. members had approached him recently wanting to discuss issues related to the U.S.O.C. He said that changes in U.S.O.C. leadership “has not helped,” either, and that it was clear that the Chicago bid and the U.S.O.C. were not united. Stephanie Streeter, the acting chief executive of the U.S.O.C., and Larry Probst, the committee’s chairman, have taken their posts in the last year and have run into problems with the I.O.C., most notably over their stalled plan for an Olympic television network and their share of the Games’ network and corporate sponsorship contracts.
“The United States, within the Olympic movement, hasn’t engaged as well as we could have for a long time,” said Robert Ctvrtlik, the U.S.O.C. vice president for international relations. “There’s a lot of politics going on. This isn’t just on the merits. I don’t think it’s anti-American. Maybe we still don’t have the horsepower to do some of the politicking within the movement.”
For the first time, a United States president met with the I.O.C. on behalf of an American bid — which U.S.O.C. officials called the country’s strongest bid ever — but that was not enough. This followed New York City’s failed bid for the 2012 Summer Games, a second-round exit after winning only 19 votes.
“All we know is that the first round is always the most dangerous and obviously we didn’t have a large region of support,” Chicago’s bid leader, Patrick G. Ryan, said. “We wanted to bring home the victory and we didn’t. It wasn’t our day.”
On his flight back to Washington on Friday, Mr. Obama said he was disappointed about Chicago’s finish.
“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,” Mr. Obama said after arriving back in Washington.
In Rio, officials declared a holiday for city and state employees. While tens of thousands of people had begun the celebration on the city’s Copacabana beach, where people dressed in shorts and bikinis jumped to samba music, the scene was different earlier in Chicago.
“It’s sad,” said Marshall Burt, a lawyer, as he stood in Daley Plaza, in the heart of Chicago’s Loop, where thousands had gathered for what they expected to be a victory rally. “But I think probably the world is still not real keen on America.” He added later, “Chicago may still have the image of gangsters and corruption.”
The I.O.C. member Kevan Gosper, of Australia, said the few votes cast for Chicago could have been an accident. “There might have been an effort on the part of the Asian group to protect Tokyo in the first round,” he said.
Richard W. Pound, an I.O.C. member from Canada, said that Chicago might have been eliminated early on purpose. “I think there were a lot of people saying, if we don’t get it, we’ll support you, but we’ve got to stop Chicago,” he said. “That’s sport politics, not anything else. It’s election management. The Europeans and the Asians are much better at this than we are.”
Some members of the Olympic movement in the United States said they were bracing for this moment.
Skip Gilbert, the chief executive of USA Triathlon and the chairman of the National Governing Bodies Association, said he planned to meet with other executives at national governing bodies to decide what to do next. One option would be to recommend a change in leadership, he said.
“I think it comes down to when you have a leadership that has no real connection to the Olympic movement before they walk into their roles, what would you expect that they’re going to be able to do in terms of being leaders of an Olympic movement?” he said. “Unfortunately it seems like — and the vote kind of confirms it — that we were doomed to fail from the beginning.”
Still, Chicago planned for victory. The bid team reserved a hall in downtown here, where they had planned to celebrate with about 500 supporters. When the team arrived, the crowd began singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” said Michael Plant, a U.S.O.C. board member here as part of Chicago’s delegation.
Geography, though, was Rio’s strongest point. It helped the city overcome concerns about security in the Brazilian city. There were also concerns that the country would be overextended because it is hosting the 2014 World Cup.
It helped Rio that the I.O.C. has a history of trying to effect change with its choices for bid cities. The committee awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing, hoping to help open China to the world. In 1981, it gave the 1988 Summer Games to Seoul to help usher in a civilian government.
By choosing Rio, it could help the country develop faster and could bring an entire continent of people closer to the Olympic movement.
“Today is the most emotional day in my life, the most exciting day of my life,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvaof Brazil said. “I’ve never felt more pride in Brazil. Now, we are going to show the world we can be a great country. We aren’t the United States, but we are getting there, and we will get there.”
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