Rio de Janeiro has won the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the Olympics. In honor of this news, I just had to post this video:

When Rio de Janeiro announced its desire to host the Olympic Games, concerns of urban violence, chaotic traffic and pollution made Rio’s chances of winning the bid slim. One bid official said, “Everyone was expecting at some point a major screw-up by Rio. But that never happened, and the result was the verdict from the (IOC) evaluating commission, which regarded the ‘carioca’ project as ‘very high quality.’”

Why has it been been four decades since a Latin American country, or any developing country, has hosted the games? Time Magazine explains:

that was the Mexico City Olympiad of 1968, when Mexico convinced the IOC that it was a modern republic ready to stand alongside Britain and Japan and Australia–only to have its army massacre hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators 10 days before the opening ceremonies. The bar was set much higher for Latin America after that, meaning that a country would have to persuade the IOC that it could be a showcase for development as well as decathletes.

And persuade they did, defeating the powerful triple threat team of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah who were pushing for Chicago to be the Olympic home for 2016.