Defeat and Barack Obama. Barack Obama and defeat.
 

The two just don’t go together.
 

But they were forced together here by the judgement of the International Olympic Committee, whose 98 voting members not only awarded the 2016 Games to the irresistible rising force of Rio, but eliminated the Chicago bid - endorsed here by the presence of not just the President but also his wife – at the first round stage. The First Lady sings the blues...Chicago sings the blues...
 

The news reached the First Family as they were in mid-air en route back to Washington, and the President’s reaction was characteristically noble: "I don’t regret anything. I'm glad we came." 
 

As the President of the United States and his wife had been ushered into their dense, black bulletproof limousine and driven away from the Bella Centre, venue for voting process, the collective nose of the world's press was pressed against the window.
 

Half an hour earlier, the President had unwittingly infringed IOC etiquette by shaking hands with the members he had just addressed in the presentation room. But those members had seemed more than happy to be complicit in this small transgression.

Even on his way out, America’s first President of African origin had proved unerring in his feel for events, breaking off a conversation upon spotting the great Kenyan runner Kip Keino, who is an IOC member. “Sorry, I’ve got to speak to this man,” he announced before greeting the double Olympic champion and speaking to him in Swahili.

As the motorcade made its way to Copenhagen airport, the First Lady would have been able to reflect upon the fact that her emotional contribution to Chicago’s presentation had upstaged even her husband’s masterful oratory.

Chicago’s top cards had been played at the end of the hand, energising a presentation that, for all its painful sincerity, was lacking in ease, cohesion and animation.

The First Family had done all that was asked of them – and no one could now say they hadn’t.  And it still wasn’t enough to stem the irresistible force that was Rio 2016. Wasn’t even enough to prevent the Chicago bid team, many people’s favourites, being left in a state of shock at the complete rejection of everything it had striven for.

Alistair Campbell, who for so long steered Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair through the media minefield, observed this week on the subject of Obama’s commitment to visiting Copenhagen: "Leadership is sometimes about risking your capital to make something happen that might not happen without you using your capital."

But that's the thing about risks. They’re risky.

 
Bob Ctvrtlik, vice-chairman of the bid and three-times Olympian, his face drawn with disappointment, rejected the suggestion that the IOC members had passed a judgement upon the United States through the medium of the secret ballot.

After a very long, thoughtful pause.

And he accepted that the United States sometimes fractious relationship within the big brotherhood of sport may have played a part in the events of the day.

"The US hasn’t engaged as well as it could with the Olympic Movement. This result was not just on the merits. There's a lot of politicking going on...but I don’t think it’s anti-American," he told a heaving, straining mass of reporters and TV camera crews who had rolled forwards and backwards on the threshold of the laughably named Mixed Zone like waves on the Copacabana.

The question of whether Chicago would bid again was firmly sidestepped. "We haven’t had the discussion," Ctvrtlik concluded.

Pat Ryan, the chief executive and chairman of Chicago's bid, his face set beneath that shock of white hair – even his hair looked shocked in the aftermath of the vote – was as gracious as a man could be in the circumstances as he echoed the line taken by his President.

"It has absolutely been worth ...I don’t want to call it trouble...we have introduced Chicago to the world," he said. "It is so much better known and appreciated all round the world. Chicagoans can hold their heads up. I'm sorry we couldn't bring home the victory, but there is only one gold medal winner here and it just wasn't our day."

The question of whether his team had lost by a few votes, or many, was immaterial to him.

"We always knew the first round was going to be the most dangerous," he said. "That’s how this process works. There are people who vote a certain way in the first round and then change. We didn't have any large regional support. We had two from Canada, two from Mexico. But I believe the city is much better off for having had this attention."

In  contrast to Chicago, the presentation made by Rio de Janeiro was a model of faith, hope and clarity – and the greatest of these was clarity. Well might Carlos Roberto Osorio, the secretary general of the Rio 2016 Bid Committee, observe that the Rio team had left the presentation room feeling "very proud", convinced that they had succeeded in making the IOC members aware of the "historic opportunity" they had to award South America its first Games, and comfortable enough to do so. "We felt the warmth," Osorio added.

In footballing terms, the United States had turned up with two star strikers; but Brazil had played the beautiful game.

It was hardly a surprise, in the moments after IOC president Jacques Rogge had decisively flicked open the Envelope of Decision – no 16-second fumblings this time around, thanks to the timely intervention of a Sheffield steel letter opener donated by that city’s famous son S Coe – and announced Rio de Janeiro as the winners, that arguably the finest exponent of that beautiful game, Pele, had tears streaming down his face amid the bedlam of hugs and whoops.

He had admitted a couple of hours earlier that he was "a big cry baby", something confirmed in the Rio presentation itself as it featured a slide of his emotional greeting of the Olympic flame as it passed through his home country en route for Athens in 2004.

Seb Coe reflected this week on his own feelings as bid leader for London 2012 in the moments before and after their victory was announced, eventually, by Rogge.
 

"I was thinking ‘I just hope we come out the right side of this'," he said.  "I just didn’t want to have let down, and our team didn’t want to have let down, the thousands of people the length and breadth of the country who had helped the bid at every level.
 

"When the decision was announced, I suppose the feeling was actually quite reminiscent of coming out the right side of the Olympic Games, and being relieved it was all over."
 

But relief did not appear to be the prime emotion of the cavorting celebrants in the presentation room. Joy. That was more the mood.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames and will be reporting regularly from the IOC Session in Copenhagen this week