A Mistake of Olympian Proportions

          With the beginning of the Winter Olympics, we’ve heard a lot about Sochi, Russia and one particular ex-KGB agent. I’ve noticed that many of the stories don’t exactly provide glowing reviews of Sochi and the International Olympic Committee’s decision to hold the games there. Some of the criticism is justified. After all, the average temperature in Sochi in the month of February is 42 degrees. Hardly temperatures that bring skiing, ice hockey and curling to mind.

            The IOC awarded the games to Sochi in 2007, beating out Pyeongchang, South Korea and Salzburg, Austria. Just for comparison, the average February temperature in Pyeongchang is 22 degrees, and in Salzburg it’s 33 degrees. Things will be considerably warmer in Sochi, and it’s not just because of the vodka.

            We’ve heard stories of hotel rooms not being ready, wild dogs roaming the street, and water that’s unsafe to use. It’s fun to speculate whether these stories would be at the forefront of media coverage if the games were in a different country—like Sweden for instance—instead of a country with a human-rights-violating, madman-dictator-embracing, serial-shirt-shedding ruffian as their president.

            Of course after they report on the problems with the location, and the preparation, and the security, and the litany of things that might go wrong, our earnest reporters are sure to emphasize that they hope the games are a success.

            Sometimes they’re even believable when they say it.

            However, one story I’ve yet to see reported is exactly how Sochi ended up with the Olympics. So here it is.

            It’s a little known fact (so little known that I might be the only person with this information) that when the IOC met in Guatemala City, Guatemala to choose the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics, they didn’t intend to choose Sochi. Not until sometime well after they made the choice did they realize they had chosen the Russian city.

            Apparently, the confusion arose from the numerous translations of Sochi’s application material from the original Russian, into French, which is the IOC’s official language, into English, which is the IOC’s other official language.

            As the old saying goes, something was lost in translation.

            By the time Sochi faced Pyeongchang in the second round of voting (Salzburg had been eliminated in the first round), the original application was such a muddled mess that confusion was practically unavoidable.

            Sochi won the second round and people in Russia rejoiced.

            The IOC rejoiced, but for a different reason than the Russians.

            So if the IOC didn’t know that they had awarded the games to Sochi, Russia, then to what city did they think they awarded the games?

            Chicago. Yes, Chicago, that big-shouldered city by the lake. How on earth did the IOC confuse Sochi, Russia with Chicago, United States?

            We can blame SoHo and A-Rod, for they are two shining examples of the phenomenon in question, and both were on the IOC’s mind. You see, SoHo stands for South Houston, a neighborhood in New York City, and is home to a great art community, which the IOC relies upon when planning various aspects of the Games. And A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez, is a professional baseball player who has been in the new recently for doping, which the IOC always wants to protect against.

            Both are known by shortened variations of their names.

            So it’s only natural that when the IOC saw the word Sochi, the first thing that came to mind was SoChi, or South Chicago. And what better place to hold the Olympic games than Chicago? Granted, there are no mountains nearby, so that might throw a wrench into the plans, but the IOC accepted a 42 degree average high temperature, so why let the lack of mountains curtail a bid?

            Luckily, the IOC caught on to what happened, avoided embarrassment, and everyone met in Sochi.

            However, one casualty of this was Chicago’s actual 2016 Summer Olympic bid. In October 2009 Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting that eventually awarded the games to Rio de Janeiro. The quick elimination surprised many people, but it’s understandable now, knowing what happened with Sochi.

            The IOC may be many things, but they’re not dumb enough to award consecutive Olympic Games to the same city!