Chicago Won’t Host 2016 Olympics; IOC Selects Rio de Janeiro Instead

Once Chicago was eliminated after the first round of voting, it became pretty clear that Rio was getting the 2016 Games (British bookmakers had the odds at 3-4 for the Brazilian city late this morning). Now that the celebrating has calmed down a bit … what’s that? The Carnival-like party on Copacabana beach is expected to last well into the night, and easily boast over 100,000 people? Oh. Well, don’t mind me over here, I’ll just take a quick at how your city was able to pull off the upset.

Many will call this decision a vote against the United States, but really, it was more of a vote for all of South America, which will now host its first Olympics ever.

They may still be over six years away, but for one city, the excitement (and billions of dollars worth of planning and construction) begins today. At approximately 12:30 p.m. EST, the IOC will announce the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games. According to most, Chicago is the favorite, followed closely by Rio de Janeiro, with Tokyo and Madrid rounding out the final four candidates, all of which have their share of pros and cons.

All four hopefuls already gave their Final Bid Presentations early this morning (Chicago’s ended at 4 a.m. EST -- you didn’t stay up for it?), which included speeches from Oprah, Michelle Obama, and her husband, President Obama.