Passing the 2016 Olympic Torch: Rio de Janeiro

The host city of the 2016 Olympic Games will be announced on Friday, Oct. 2. In an effort to prepare you for the big day in Copenhagen, we'll take a look at each city this week, leading up to Friday's announcement.

The supporters of Rio de Janeiro's Olympics bid have made their strongest appeals by noting the IOC's own shortcomings, namely that they have yet to stage an Olympiad in South America. Reports circulated that Rio's bid team made a splash earlier this year with a presentation to the selection committee that included a giant world map with dots showing where previous Olympics had been located, with a conspicuous void in the continent of South America. Should Rio obtain the bid, Africa would become the sole (inhabited) continent without an Olympiad.

Taken together with the fact that Brazil will play host to the 2014 World Cup, a country that was unable to crack the finalists for the 2004 and 2012 games finds itself a surprisingly viable candidate.

BIGGEST ENDORSERS: Chicago can claim the biggest celebrities of the group in Obama and Oprah testifying on their behalf, but Rio can claim the most noteworthy sports figure with soccer icon Pele's support in Copenhagen. Popular Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be joining him and making the case that Brazil has a growing economy, buoyed by more foreign investments and the discovery of one of the world's biggest oil reserves off its coast, that has not been as adversely affected by the global downturn as other bidding countries. 

GREATEST CONTRIBUTIONS TO SPORTS: Legendary soccer stars Ronaldo and Garrincha are both from Rio, and the Maracanã soccer stadium is located in the city. The MMA group Black House, which includes Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida, is based in Rio.

FOOD THEY'LL WRITE HOME ABOUT: The national dish, Feijoada, combines a sportswriter-approved slew of meats (sausage, pork and others) with black beans, garlic and orange slices in a stew that would be name-checked more than a few times.

UNVERIFIED FACT LEARNED FROM WIKIPEDIA THAT WILL IN NO WAY HELP THE CITY'S HOPES FOR A BID: "Rio de Janeiro has the oldest operating electric tramway, now mainly used by tourists and less by daily commuters. The Santa Teresa Historic Tramway or bondinho, has been preserved both as a piece of history and as a quick, fun, cheap way of getting to one of the most quirky parts of the city. The tram station is near Cinelândia and the Municipal Theatre."

MURDER RATE: The City of God associations and the fact that Rio has more than a million slum dwellers will be the biggest hurdle for Rio to overcome. Still, some positive gains have been made - the city had 33 homicides per 100,000 people in 2008, down from 39 per 100,000 the year before. 

POTENTIAL LOGO:

Ah, hearts and rings and colors, an exclamation point, and something that looks like it should be the same upside down. Go ahead, try to look. Still a jumbled mess, no?

THE DOWNSIDE: Major landmarks and allure of tropical locales like Copacabana Beach aside, danger lurks for tourists who happen to stray from the South Zone. The huge contrast in economic equality and frequent reports of violent police raids in the slums don't do much to paint a rosy picture of the city.

BOTTOM LINE: Rio is the strongest competition Chicago has to getting the Games, but at this point it's still looking like an outside shot.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.