2016 Olympic: US President Barack Obama flexes political muscle to give Chicago final push for 2016

Chicago's Olympic

The International Olympic Committee will on Friday host an unprecedented clash of political wills as United States President Barack Obama attempts to trump his counterparts from Brazil, Spain and Japan to secure the 2016 summer Games for his former home town of Chicago.
Never have sport and politics been more firmly entwined than in this campaign, which accelerated into a political beauty contest as Friday’s final vote approached.

Obama will become the first serving President to address the IOC when he takes part in Chicago’s final presentation on Friday morning, but to win he will have to push back a decade of anti-American sentiment in the Olympic movement and overcome a fierce challenge from a similarly committed and charismatic political foe. While Obama is expected to yoke Chicago’s Olympic ambition to his wider diplomatic goal of reintegrating the US with the global community, Brazil’s President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva will offer the IOC a persuasive, emotional argument in favour of Rio de Janeiro, expected to be the American city’s closest rival.

Lula, like Obama a leader from outside the ruling elite from which many IOC members are drawn, will argue that Rio presents the IOC with a historic choice, an opportunity to take the Games to South America for the first time and entrust them to an emerging nation.

read full article: US President Barack Obama flexes political muscle to give Chicago final push for 2016
telegraph.co.uk