At least 24 injuries are reported so far in a Green Line derailment this morning on the South Side – just a day before Mayor Richard M. Daley flies to Athens to learn if Chicago will advance to the next round of competition for the 2016 Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee is expected to pare the list of finalists from seven to four or five. That’s cutting it pretty close for Chicago; last fall, United States Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth said that Rio, Madrid and Tokyo were ahead of Chicago. The other contenders are Prague; Doha, Qatar; and Baku, Azerbaijan. (Doha just won a nice little award for how it handled the Asian Games.)
It seems unlikely that Chicago won’t make it to the next round – Sun-Times reporter Andrew Herrmann recently said on Week in Review that his sources say it’s a lock, though I haven’t seen that in the paper – but visions in the minds of IOC members of Olympic visitors hurt in train derailments don’t help.
1 response so far ↓
Nicholas // May 28, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Chicago will make it to the final round of decision on the quality of our hookers and other bribes supplied to the IOC officials. Only Prague will give us a run for our money there. Only if the CTA fails to compare favorably to the transit system of Baku, are we in trouble. Of course, right now Baku is looking pretty good in that regard.