COPENHAGEN — Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes.

Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story — of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent yearning, hoping, that the Olympics finally might come to them.

And the International Olympic Committee was hooked.

Olympians, we'll see you on Copacabana beach in 2016. Let Carnival begin.

The IOC yesterday sent the games of the 31st Olympiad to Brazil's bustling, fun-loving but crime-ridden city of beaches and mountains, romance and slums. The IOC closed its eyes to the risks — the huge projected costs of the Rio Games, the concerns about how athletes will get around and where people will sleep — to focus on the reward of lighting the Olympic cauldron in one of the last corners of the globe yet to be bathed by its light.

"It is Brazil's time," said the country's charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Chicago was knocked out in the first round. Bad blood between the IOC and its U.S. branch — they've had flare-ups over revenue sharing and lucrative broadcasting rights — proved to be a note of discord.

Rio beat Madrid 66 to 32 in the final vote.