Oops. Big oops. Really big oops.
Chicago has engaged the services of former Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games official Charlie Battle in their bid to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to their city. He is described as an Olympic official "with over twenty years experience."
Not the most appropriate choice, I say.
In a 1999 Washington Post article, he admitted that ACOG "probably violated" IOC gift-giving limits, but "nothing illegal went on." I am not so sure, with all the Olympic consultants out there, Chicago couldn't chose one person who has absolutely NO question about how they handled previous Olympic dealings.
This is an issue of which the IOC is quite sensitive: you better have your hands squeaky-clean, otherwise anything you say or do could be called into question. There have been people at the IOC working their butts off to erase the scandal-laden Samaranch years. It's up to the bid committtes to do their part. And this is where Chicago is already failing.
Tell that to NYC 2012 about how well their bid went down. Charlie was involved with them too. If I was a bid official, I would hold off and search for someone with absolutely no question of a black mark, improper gifting or other Olympic-related bid wrongs by co-workers in their past.
Chicago better be more careful in the people they hire in the future, because it's going to be called into question in Copenhagen.
That is if those people aren't let go beforehand. Which might not be such a bad idea at this point.
