(CBS) CHICAGO After the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon came to an abrupt and chaotic end due to intense heat, some are wondering if the problems on the race course will hurt Chicago's Olympic bid.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, that may not be the case.
As the race unfolded, scenes were transmitted worldwide showing runners collapsing on the course and ambulances lined up all over town. That was followed quickly by runners complaining of a lack of water and Gatorade at aid stations along the route. The events topped Matt Drudge's super-site,
The Drudge Report on Sunday, making the event an international story.
The questions about how Chicago handled the heat-stricken marathon came just days after a warning from U.S. Olympic Committee President Peter Ueberroth.
"We're going to have to show the world we can put on a world class event, welcome over a hundred countries here, we haven't done that," Ueberroth said speaking specifically about the upcoming world boxing championships coming to Chicago.
Chicago's marathon draws a huge international field too, so his warning about stories world class athletes take home being critical to Chicago's Olympic hopes could apply to the marathon too.
"You can't predict what the weather's going to be, and so you just have to think ahead, plan ahead, be prepared as best you can. Sure it's a bump in the road, but we can address it. We're many years from the actual event," U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said.
An Olympic marathon would undoubtedly be run in mid-summer heat, but by world-class athletes like those who finished Sunday's race without experiencing problems.
A spokesman for Chicago 2016 calls the outcome of the marathon "unique and unfortunate," but said it shouldn't reflect on Chicago's ability to handle an "Olympic Games marathon with fewer than 200 elite athletes… a very different event than [Sunday's] race of nearly 40,000 runners."
Marathon organizers said they believe the way the city handled the heat emergency would be anything but a black eye for Chicago.
"I think this is a great example. I mean we were put in an adverse situation and all the agencies we've been working with responded well. They all stepped up in a grand way," executive race director Carey Pinkowski said on Monday.
Comparing how Chicago handled the marathon to the city's ability to handle the Olympics might be like comparing apples and oranges.
Top runners who competed and finished early, before the real heat, before the water shortage, before the controversy, may well take back glowing tales to their national Olympic committees, which may at least counteract all the stories about all the problems.