by Kaitlin Highstreet
News Editor 

    Every four years the best of the best athletes meet in one location to compete for fame, glory, and a bit of gold. After a heated race between four cities, the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The final vote was taken and announced on Oct. 2, after years of preparation and campaigning for the vote.

    Other cities included in the finals were Chicago, Tokyo, and Madrid. The competition for hosting the Olympics is a solid indicator of the competition faced in the Games themselves. The heads-of-state for each competing country went to Copenhagen, where the venue was picked. Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated in the first and second rounds of voting, respectively. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama lobbied unsuccessfully for Chicago. Madrid competed against Rio de Janeiro in the final round of voting but ultimately lost with 32 votes against Brazil’s 66, leaving Rio as the first South American city to ever host the Olympics. The Brazilian government recognizes that there is a vast amount of work yet to be done in preparation for this worldwide competition. Brazil was the only finalist who had never hosted the Olympics before. Each of the other countries had previously won the Olympic bid, so this was a landmark victory for the nation. As noted by Brazil’s President da Silva, “among the top-10 economies of the world, Brazil is the only country that has not hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

   The 2016 Olympics are officially underway, with the city selected and the wheels set in motion. With many of its stadiums and facilities already built, all that is left to be seen is how the city of Rio rises to the challenge.