AP: It's Still Chicago's to Lose

According to an associate press report out of Paris, Chicago is still the leader to host the 2016 Olympics. Although these types of reports have to be taken with a grain of salt, it's still encouraging for people who support and are looking forward to the opportunity of hosting the games.

The article cites anonymous IOC sources and others closely associated with the Olympic movement. To be honest, no new topics or subjects are reported in this story, but it's still reassuring to hear that the same thoughts we've read about are still prevalent.

The main arguments are

Obama's support for Chicago's bid may be too much for other bids to overcome:

To vote out Chicago would mean they had snubbed the most powerful person in the world

The argument for and against Tokyo:

Tokyo has the experience uniquely of the candidates of already hosting the Games - albeit over 40 years ago - but still appear to suffer from the image of Asia having hosted them in 2008 with the hugely successful Beijing Games and other major events also seemingly poised to be hosted on that continent

The article didn't really make much of an argument for or against Madrid, but the biggest reason as to why it wouldn't be there is because London is hosting 2012 and they do like to rotate throughout continents (so the thinking is they would want to avoid Europe in back-to-back summer Olympics). However, they do have the most infrastructure (stadiums and transportation) already created in the competition.

In regards to Rio:

Rio certainly has the passion and the lure of being the first South American city to host the Games but the feeling still persists in some members eyes that Brazil will just have come out of hosting the World Cup in 2014 and they don't want to be seen as one Asian member put it 'the dessert after the main course'.