2016 Olympics in Chicago?

LA loses bid but backs Chicago for 2016 Olympics
Sun Apr 15, 2007 9:16 AM IST

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Olympic swimming champion John Naber, while bitterly disappointed Los Angeles lost an opportunity to host the 2016 Summer Games, has thrown his support behind Chicago as the U.S. candidate city.

Naber, who played an instrumental role in the Los Angeles bid, was in the California city when he heard Chicago had been selected by the U.S. Olympic Committee in a tight vote on Saturday.

"I and all of us on the board want to support Chicago and wish them luck and great success," the Illinois-born Naber told reporters at a gathering in Los Angeles organized by the Southern Californian Committee for the Olympic Games, or SCCOG.

"Just like in the Olympic trials, they have made the Olympic team and we want them to do well."

Naber, a vice president of the SCCOG who won four gold medals in world-record times at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, said he had no regrets over the Los Angeles bid.

"I don't think there was a thing we could have done to change their (the USOC's) mind," the 51-year-old Naber said.

"We did everything we possibly could to put our best foot forward and I'm extremely proud of what we did and what we said and what we could have done.

"This was a difficult decision for the USOC to make because they don't have to decide what's in their best interests; they have to decide what they felt would be in the IOC's (International Olympic Committee's) best interests.

"They obviously felt that it would be an easier sell to convince the IOC to bring the Olympics to Chicago in 2016 rather than Los Angeles."

The IOC will make its final decision on which city will host the 2016 Summer Games in October 2009. Other bids are expected from Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Madrid, New Delhi and Qatar.

Asked if he could pinpoint any reason why Los Angeles lost out to Chicago, Naber replied: "I believe the one deficit that L.A. has had to face is that we were so successful twice before.

"The Olympic movement wants to share itself with the world and they are very concerned about going to parts of the world that have never held the Olympics before.

"Perhaps Chicago, by the fact that they have never hosted the Olympics before, would be a likely benefit to the international Olympic movement."

Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics.