The 2016 Summer Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro, not Chicago

The Olympics were awarded to a South American city for the first time when the International Olympic Committee on Friday voted for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Games.

Rio de Janeiro beat Madrid in the final round of voting, 66-32. The committee delivered an unexpectedly early knockout blow to Chicago, which was eliminated in the first round. Tokyo was gone in the second.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the committee, made the announcement, sending crowds in Rio de Janeiro into celebration.

The announcement was shown live on Rio’s Copacabana beach, where tens of thousands of people had begun the party early in front of a main stage flanked by screens.

As the envelope was opened in Copenhagen, a loud scream rose from the crowd. Confetti exploded from the stage, as the people, dressed in shorts and bikinis, jumped to samba music and waved Brazilian flags and balloons of green and yellow, the national colors.

The scene was different earlier in Chicago as throngs in Daley Plaza gasped in disappointment when Rogge announced that Chicago was out.

Jørn Utzon

Jørn Utzon, the Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House, has died aged 90. Guardian.co.uk reported that Saturday 29 November. I picked the news up at Asfaltkonijn.
Utzon left the project in 1966, seven years before it was finished, after scandals about cost overruns and design arguments. Government-appointed architects took over and the interior was not completed to Utzon's original plan. Either way it was the first building that really captured my imagination. I studied architecture just before the adworld got hold of me... Utzon isn't my favorite but he certainly deserves that virtual minute of silence. He can surely compete with my favorite architects: Ando, Sant'Elia, Woods and Wright



@Marijs: he did indeed build the Operaen in Copenhagen. Discover more flicks on my Flickrpage