Friday from Copenhagen, Denmark, the International Olympic Committee headed by President Jacques Rogge, chose Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The irony of all this is that it will be the middle of winter in Rio since it is located in the Southern Hemisphere and the seasons are opposite those of North America from whence the "summer" and "winter" designations are derived.  But, nevertheless, the Brazilian Olympic Committee headed by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, President of Brazil and former labor union leader, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, and former international soccer star simply known by his first name, Pele, put on a stellar presentation to the IOC with the selling point being that 2016 could usher in a new era with South America hosting its first Olympic Games in history.  President Luiz Inacio da Silva (affectionately known in Brazil as simply, "Lula" for the last several decades, and now, "Presidente Lula") appealled to the IOC by saying, "It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country." 
 
Historically, Europe has hosted 30 modern Olympic games, the U.S. 12, and Asia 5.  Other North American cities have hosted as well, including Montreal and Mexico City.  The four final round contenders for Friday's announcement were:  Tokyo, Madrid, Rio, and Chicago.  Tokyo may have been at a slight disadvantage with the very last Olympics in 2008 being held in Beijing, China.  Madrid sent former President of the IOC for 21 years, 89 year old, Juan Antonio Samaranch, to plead its case for selection.  He sent an emotional appeal indicating that he was in his twilight years and wanted to live to see the Olympic games being held in Madrid, with Spain his home country. While Samaranch served for 21 years as President of the IOC, he left a legacy of taking a virtually bankrupt international organization in the 1970's to a global enterprise with television deals, corporate sponsorships, and the admission of professional athletes to the formerly purely amateur games to raise the level of competition to attract more viewers and sponsorship. On the darker side, his reign was mired in bribery, judging scandals and doping violations.  Several IOC members were expelled for allegedly accepting bribes related to the 2002 Winter Salt Lake City games. So, his twilight appeal for Madrid was ineffective, even though his son who shares his name currently serves on the IOC. 
 
And, last, and, yes, last, was Chicago.  Chicago was represented in its bid to bring the Olympics to the lakeside city in the summer of 2016 by the U.S. Olympic Committee and a two day visit by Michelle Obama to court the IOC.  President Obama flew in like a caped crusader for a few hours to woo the IOC, as did Oprah Winfrey.  Oprah was like the 9th inning closer in a baseball game for Obama in his campaign leading up to the 2008 presidential elections, she was brought in to seal the deal for his elections in front of stadiums full of people in the South in the final months of the campaign.  But, U.S. IOC has an ongoing dispute over revenue sharing for television rights with the IOC that remains unresolved.  In addition, the last two Olympic games hosted in the U.S. were 1996 Summer in Atlanta, Georgia and 2002 Winter in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Each of these events had its own problems.  Atlanta had the bombing for which an innocent man was persecuted and later exonerated.  This caused anxiety among spectators, athletes, security forces, and organizers alike, as well as a media frenzy that focused on the bombing and its investigation, instead of being solely devoted to the games.  Something that Americans associate only with terrorist countries, but alas, our terrorist was American and home grown. And, the Salt Lake City games were mired in a financial scandal wherein it was alleged that IOC members had accepted bribes to buy the venue its host status in 2002.  These issues, coupled with the cultural naivete demonstrated by the swooping in of the Obama team at the last minute to do business with global cultures that like to be wined & dined before being pounced on, lost Chicago its bid.  In fact, it was eliminated first in the final round.  Chicago was stunned as their lakeside complexes were left to be mere drawings of some unrealized vision and the shorelines of their lakes sat quietly.
 
Rio, on the other hand, was rocking to a samba beat with 100,000 Cariocas (habitants of Rio) gathered on Copacabana Beach to watch the IOC selection announcement.  The all night long after party was a rival to Carnaval.  Pele was in tears and President Lula da Silva was crying and wiping his tears while delivering his acceptance speech before the IOC and news media in Copenhagen.  Brazil has 200 million inhabitants and is geographically the fifth largest country in the world after Russia, China, Canada and the U.S..  It's economy is the tenth largest in the world, and is thriving despite the global recession because it is well diversified and has a history of compelling foreign investors to make capital investments in industry domestically in order to do business there, instead of relying on banana or other natural resource exports for industrial imports as many tropical third world countries have.  Hence, Brazil is a world industrial power serving both the domestic and foreign markets.  Portuguese is a very unique language and foreign languages are not easily interpreted as approximately 30% of Brazilians are illiterate in their own native language.  Educated Brazilians can somewhat understand Spanish, but Spanish speakers cannot understand the nasilized sound of Brazilian Portuguese, except where words are overlap exactly.  The IOC international languages of English and French are truly foreign languages in Brazil, spoken by a minute, elite portion of the population.  The emotional warmth and hospitality of the Brazilian people are its most precious resource, far above any stadiums that will be built.  Rio is one of the most physically beautiful cities in the world with its stunning Ipanema and Copacabana beaches; Pao de Azucar or Sugarloaf mountain rising up at the end of Copacabana; and Corcovado,the statue of Christ seated on another nearby mountain watching over all the city. 
 
But, Rio and Brazil have their hands full of challenge over the next seven years in order to make that glorious city Olympics-ready.  Not only does Corcovado look down over the city to bless it, but so do the drug lords and gangs who run the favelas or shantytown slums that completely dominate the city; landscape.  They terrorize its population daily in ways unknown to the outside world.  Violence is rampant.  Domestics and foreigners alike are subject to being stopped in the city's many tunnels and robbed, blinded by chemicals, carjacked, or simply murdered.  It's unsafe to walk the streets due to crime.  Many business people use armored cars out of necessity after surviving crime attempts, including kidnapping, which has risen to epidemic proportion.  Jesse James-like crimes take place with alarming frequency on public transportation where armed vandals simultaneously enter both bus or train doors and demand everything of value from passengers, and get it.  Corruption is rumored to be abundant among the local police because of fast flowing drug money from abroad to the favelas.  The Federal government and military of Brazil will obviously have a tremendous opportunity and challenge to clean up and stabilize this gem of the Southern Hemisphere, in order to make it tourist ready and safe to host the 2016 Summer Olympic games during winter in Rio de Janeiro.

Kimberly Wilcox is currently freelance writing about financial politics, as well as Healthcare policy, specifically, Chemical Injury and its medical & lifestyle consequences.  She is a lifestyle coach to others with chemical injury, chronic fatigue, autism, Gulf War Syndrome & Fibromyalgia, as well as to professional athletes desiring peak performance without use of illegal PED's.  She is an expert on Green Living and her new book will soon be published about the Green Life that she has been forced to live for the last decade.