Why I’m Betting on Brazil for the 2016 Olympics

On Friday, the International Olympic Committee will decide the location of the 2016 Summer Olympics. The front runners are Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

Having an Olympics in a South American country in long overdue.

Brazil is set to host soccer’s 2014 World Cup. But it was the sole country to bid on the event.

For the Olympics, Brazil will be competing in a crowded playing field, which will include personal appeals to Olympic officials in Copenhagen this week from the likes of Barack Obama–who seems to be enjoying rock star-like status on the international stage.

But according to Brazzil Magazine, Brazil has launched its own PR campaign. Among those representing the country in Copenhagen will be Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former soccer great Pele.

Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro  has a lot going for it, including:

• the world’s 10th largest economy,
• beautiful beaches, and
• sport’s crazy citizens.

The city seems almost custom-made for hosting a summer Olympics. Footprint’s 2010 South American Handbook notes that Rio:

is first and foremost a city dedicated to leisure: sport and music rule and a day spent hang gliding and surfing is easily followed by an evening of jazz or samba.

Rio reportedly gained praise from the IOC for successfully hosting the 2007 Pan Am Games. But the country never followed through on several promises it made to win the right to host that event, according to Time magazine. Specifically, Time says that Rio promised to build a new ring road system, a light railway, a new highway, and additional metro lines. But the magazine says:

none of the roads, nary a kilometer of metro line, were built. Authorities also promised to clean up the Guanabara Bay, the fetid body of water whose smell assails visitors driving into town from the international airport. Although hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, the stench persists and the bay remains a stinking eyesore.

The famous saying about Brazil is that it’s the country of the future and always will be. Even so, if I were a betting man (which I’m not because I lose too often) I’d put my money on Rio. Brazil has been on a winning streak lately. It seems as though the country finds a huge deposit of oil every other week. Even before that it became one of the few energy-independent countries in the world through its innovative use of biofuels.

So, here’s my prediction: Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics.

Agree? Disagree?

Photo by Savaman (via Creative Commons)