This summer the city of Chicago will host the Gay Games, a gay-friendly event filled with Olympics-esque competitions. Of course, this is terrible news as it may lead Chicago down a slippery slope toward trying to host the actual Olympics.

It is no secret that Chicago’s Mayor Daley wants to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and it seems that most Chicagoans agree. A recent Peter D. Hart Research & Associates poll shows that 79 percent of those surveyed would like the 2016 Olympics to be in Chicago. And while hosting the Olympics may seem like a good idea, many people do not realize the myriad of problems Olympic cities must face.

Cost is definitely a major factor that Chicago must consider. Olympic cities must spend a great deal of money building the required facilities and improving their infrastructure. Many cities that host the Olympics end up in debt. The 2000 Olympics in Sydney cost the government of New South Whales $1.5 billion. Since then, it has only recouped a third of that cost in Olympic-related revenue.

And in terms of cost, things are only getting worse. As competition among cities vying to host the Olympics heats up, the need for more elaborate and more expensive facilities increases. The total cost of the 2006 Summer Olympics in Athens has been estimated to be anywhere from $8.5 to nearly $15 billion.

Another problem with hosting the Olympics is what to do with the leftover facilities after the games have ended. Visit any number of former Olympic cities and you will see numerous stadiums standing idle or even decaying for lack of a purpose. The last thing Chicago needs is more useless buildings littering its landscape.

Of course, the elephant in the room would be terrorism concerns. Now that Chicago has the dubious honor of being a target for terrorists, security concerns would be at the forefront of any attempts to host the Olympics. For the 2006 Olympics, Greece spent $2 billion alone on security and required the support of NATO. Chicago would have to spend just as much – or more.

Considering other factors including the tremendous strain on public transportation and the massive infrastructure upgrades that would be required, it becomes obvious why hosting the Olympics is a less than ideal scenario.

Look Chicago, I know you have serious issues with your “second city” stigma and I know you long for the glory days of 1893 when you were a world-class city. But hosting the Olympics will only bring heartbreak. You and the Olympics just would not get along. How can a city that Men’s Fitness magazine called the fattest city in the nation host the pinnacle of athletic competition?

Though if you truly wish to follow this destructive path toward hosting the Olympics, Chicago, I suggest as your Olympic mascot the perpetually bloated George Wendt and the reanimated corpse of Chris Farley as the bratwurst-eating, heart attack-suffering, Ditka-worshipping Super Fans. “Da Olympics!” would sound way cooler than Beijing’s “One world, One dream” slogan.