In the nearly three years since, there would have been little tangible evidence of what that announcement meant to Chicago.
The idea of a Summer Olympics in Chicago still would seem a long way off.
But on Aug. 12 in the London Olympic Stadium, that all would have changed, for better and for worse, because of what London organizing chief Sebastian Coe calls "the curse of the hand-over."
It is the eight-minute segment of the closing ceremony that spotlights some of the culture, in the loosest sense of the word, of the upcoming Summer Olympics host, whose mayor accepts the Olympic flag from the IOC president, making it clear which city is hosting next.
(Would it be Rahm Emanuel getting the flag? Or would Richard Daley have run for mayor again — and won — had Chicago's Olympic bid been successful?)
In the 2008 closing ceremony in Beijing, London rolled out a red double-decker bus, featured singer Leona Lewis and guitarist Jimmy Page doing a rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," had David Beckham kick a soccer ball — and drew thousands of complaints from viewers watching in Britain that the show was tacky.
To Coe, who spent a lot of time in the Chicago area training for the 1984 Olympic Games, and some members of the city's bid committee, there is no doubt what Chicago symbol would have deserved the brightest spotlight:
The blues.
"You could do skyscrapers and the lake and the 'L,'" said Doug Arnot, who was Chicago 2016's director of sport, venues and operations and now is London's director of sports operations, "but for emotional impact, it would have to be the Chicago blues."
It wouldn't have been all circuses for a Chicago 2016 Olympic Organizing Committee at this point. Members also would have been paying attention to a number of bread-and-butter issues, such as:
• Signing domestic sponsorship deals.
• Convincing a city with a debt of some $500 million the result wasn't a Pyrrhic victory.
• Sending about 100 people to London to observe the operations at the 2012 Summer Games.
• Preparing for venue construction.
Because so many of Chicago's planned Olympic venues already exist or were to be temporary, it would be a couple more years before shovels hit the ground on the major permanent structures, the aquatics center and the footprint of the Olympic Stadium in Washington Park.
"We would probably be getting started on transformation of the (Michael Reese Hospital) site for the Olympic Village," bid committee member Bill Scherr said. "I don't think there would have been much else to see at this point."
The legacy of the bid attempt exists in World Sport Chicago, funded with about 10 percent of the $75 million raised privately for the bid. Its mandate includes attracting sports events to the city and working with community groups and the Chicago Park District on youth sports and education programs.
