No Games Chicago Story Finally Told!
Nine years later but better late than never!
No Games Chicago finally gets into the mainstream media record via a chapter in the 2016 book Sport, Protest and Globalisation – Stopping Play by Jon Dart and Stephen Wagg.
The chapter is ironically (or prophetically) titled “Chicago 2016 Versus Rio 2016: Olympic ‘Winners’ and ‘Losers'” by Kostas Zervas of Leeds Trinity University.
Kostas met the No Games Chicago delegation in Copenhagen in late September of 2009 while we did our last bits of campaigning to the IOC. He was with us when we met the delegates from No Games Tokyo and was with us when we learned that Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting on October 2.
He provides a brief account of our work leading up to the Day of Decision on October 2, 2009. He concludes his account:
No Games Chicago provided invaluable information about the potential mega-event to local organisers and the community, wherever megaevents are planned, or hosted. Beyond its academic significance, the case of Chicago 2016 bid reveals how grassroots activity, if uniting around a single cause, despite the lack of financial and personal resources and limited communication channels, can take on, and beat, a very powerful organisation (IOC), its supporters and the world’s most powerful man (US president Barack Obama).
Download a pdf of the article here: Chicago 2016 Versus Rio 2016-Zervas-2016
