Creator of pro-Rio Web site steps forward

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: From the Tribune website this afternoon: : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ : Mystery solved: Creator of pro-Rio Web site steps forward : September 28, 2009 12:09 PM : A 43-year-old Chicago advertising copywriter told the Chicago Tribune today that he was the creative mind behind ChicagoansForRio.com, ending a weeklong mini-mystery surrounding the satirical Web page that sought to raise questions about Chicago support for the city's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. : Kevin Lynch has a pointed wit and a mild demeanor. He works at a Chicago advertising firm on the Magnificent Mile, but is also the author of a blog on creative marketing. He bought the Web address for ChicagoansForRio last March, when his initial enthusiasm for Chicago's bid began waning. : "I walked from the idea where I thought this was the type of city where something like that would do really well, to questions -- it was just the process after that," Lynch said. : He anonymously took ChicagoansForRio live on Sept. 20, he said, leaking a link to the Web site Chicagoist and NoGamesChicago.com, an organized opponent to the Chicago bid. From there, it became a social media phenomenon on Chicago blogs, Facebook pages and on Twitter. : What was unexpected was the whodunit response to the site, Lynch said. The culmination was a Friday report on the Canadian Olympics watchdog blog GamesBids.com that reported possible -- and, Lynch says, erroneous -- connections between ChicagoansForRio and the official bid by Rio de Janeiro. The other cities still in consideration for the 2016 Games are Tokyo and Madrid, though many Olympics watchers believe the tightest race is behind the North and South American sites. : On Saturday, a spokeswoman for Rio de Janeiro's bid officially denied any connection between Brazil's Olympic committee and the satirical site in Chicago. : "The intention was not to cause an international incident," Lynch said. : And with a final vote on the 2016 host city coming Friday, what if it swayed International Olympic Committee voters in Copenhagen this week? : "If we don't get the bid, and you can blame it on a one-page Web site? I would suggest the bid wasn't so strong after all. In this contest, you really do have four great cities, and a lot of sentimental logic in Rio for the vote to go that way." : -- James Janega

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