At a dinner in Pittsburgh during the recent G-20 summit, US first lady Michelle Obama shared the table with her Brazilian counterpart, Marisa Lula da Silva, and remarked tongue-in-cheek: ?I?m gonna hug you now and then I?m going after you in Copenhagen!? The capital of Denmark has become a metaphor for the critical UN climate change conference at the year end, but Michelle was referring to something even closer to her roots. Her home city Chicago?s honour was at stake at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Copenhagen, which would decide the prize of hosting rights for the 2016 summer games.
So attached are the Obamas to their windy city that the buzz in Washington DC these days is about a small clique of advisors from Chicago now controlling all the vital access routes to the most powerful office in the US. Given the enormous weight of the Chicago elites in the Obama administration, it was no surprise that the US President and his spouse flew in person into Copenhagen for last-minute lobbying of the 100-odd IOC delegates who were to choose the venue for the planet?s biggest sporting extravaganza in 2016.
Sadly for the ?Yes We Can? brigade, a more determined and better prepared portfolio from Brazil?s carnival city, Rio de Janeiro, carried the day with a decisive 66 votes in the second round to 32 for its nearest competitor, Madrid. Chicago was nowhere in the picture, eliminated in the first round with a paltry 18 votes.
For once, the Obamas were sidelined by the stocky and avuncular Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who erupted into tears of joy after the vote and announced in an emotional outpouring that ?I could die now and it already would have been worth it.?
Like a pugnacious marathon runner, Lula had been pressing the IOC with Rio?s claim for much longer than other bidders. He went to London and Beijing to take a tour of Olympic facilities and also met delegates more persistently and persuasively than rival heads of government from the US, Spain and Japan. His speech, last Friday before delegates voted struck many attendees as a knockout punch, laced with references to how Brazil was the only member of the club of the top ten economies of the world which had not been accorded the privilege of hosting an Olympics.
Having carefully studied the penchant of delegates to see the games go global, Lula harped on the theme that the Olympics ?belong to all peoples, to all continents and to all humanity.? The code was that South America had never been awarded the games and that its turn should finally come. He played the politics of regional representation and legitimacy to its hilt and reaped dividends.
Chicago?s presentation in Copenhagen, on the other hand, was reported to have been ?very, very anemic? compared to Rio?s ?excellent? and ?flawless? one. The Obamas? frenetic efforts were seen by some delegates as ?too businesslike? and ?lacking in respect?, while the Brazilians did their homework and massaged egos.
Even though revenues and profits from advertising and television rights would have been maximised if Chicago were crowned, many voting delegates recalled the IOC?s past frayed relations with the American Olympic Committee over broadcasting revenue shares.
Brazil was much more accommodative and less arrogant in its approach, showing that it had not only risen up the ladder over the last decade in hard economic and military power but was now adept effective in soft power projection of its unique selling points.
Under Lula, the country had recorded such enviable political stability, economic growth and international visibility that he once boasted, ?God is Brazilian.? The momentum and bounce he enjoyed at home as the unrivalled and most popular politician in national history was carried forward into Rio?s unctuous bid at Copenhagen.
Asian solidarity for Tokyo was yet another factor that ruined Chicago?s chances and handed Rio the key to 2016. Apparently, if Asian IOC delegates had not tactically voted to keep Japan in the race, then Chicago may still have survived the first round chop. But as is common with any large international organisation such as the UN or the WTO, the IOC had regional groupings that worked in Brazil?s favour.
Now that the long partying on Rio?s touristy Copacabana beach has commenced four months ahead of the annual carnival, Brazilians and other fellow South Americans are exulting that they have finally arrived on the world stage. Ever since Beijing made bagging the Olympics a cause for national redemption and recognition, the psychological value of hosting the games has risen sharply in developing countries.
As a region, South America had for so long been in the US?s shadow that the Rio Olympics is being seen as a cathartic event that will lift spirits of the whole continent. Beating Chicago is more symbolic than meets the naked eye because South America had been colonised and exploited for centuries by European colonisers from the North.
Economists maintain that hosting the Olympics does not really generate all the much-trumpeted windfall benefits for local communities. Some even contend that the wasteful overhead expenditures have high opportunity costs and could be better spent fighting poverty. But, these arguments are more than offset by incalculable morale boosts and mental uplifts. Rio 2016 will go down as a milestone in South America?s journey from the era of dictatorships and Washington-awe to a new age of assertiveness and self-determination.
?The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University