Rio has impressive Olympic bid

LONDON (AP) — The Rio bandwagon seems to be picking up speed.

Rio de Janeiro’s bid to take the Olympics to South America for the first time in 2016 gained further momentum Wednesday when the Brazilian city came off best in a technical evaluation of the four candidate cities.

Chicago, meanwhile, came in for some pointed negative comments — including its financial guarantees and public transportation — and Madrid and Tokyo also took some direct hits from the International Olympic Committee.

The 98-page report from the IOC’s evaluation commission was released exactly a month before the IOC vote in Copenhagen on Oct. 2.

“The IOC report is a real boost to the Rio bid,” bid president Carlos Nuzman said. “They have provided a very strong confirmation of our games plan and vision. It is fair to say Rio has a very positive report, and possibly the most favorable. We didn’t have any red points.”

The report, which did not grade or rank the cities, is intended only as a guide for IOC members and is unlikely to sway the final decision. Intangible factors, including geopolitical issues, always play a major role when the IOC’s 100-plus members cast their secret ballots.

The report is based on visits by the evaluation commission in April and May, and was issued two months after more than 90 members listened to presentations from the bid cities in Lausanne, Switzerland, where most of the key issues were already covered.

In what shapes up as a tight race, the final presentations on the day of the vote could be crucial. Whether President Barack Obama goes to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago could be decisive, just as Tony Blair helped secure the 2012 Olympics for London when he met IOC members in Singapore in 2005 and Vladimir Putin traveled to Guatemala City in 2007 to push Sochi’s winning bid for the 2014 Winter Games.

“Clearly having President Obama there would be an advantage,” Chicago bid leader Patrick Ryan said, “particularly since each of the other cities are saying that their leaders will be there.”

Ryan said all the issues raised in the IOC report have or can be resolved, and he expressed confidence in Chicago’s prospects of bringing the Summer Olympics back to the U.S. for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Games.