Chicago Shines for Olympic Bid.

By Todd McClamroch in News on Oct 13, 2006 2:05PM

Daley's little Olympic bid project is actually starting to get real. Back in July, Chicago was selected by the U.S. Olympic Committee as one of the three finalists for the United States bid. Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco are being evaluated and in six months the U.S. will decide which city to back for the 2016 Olympics.

But this week Daley and the Chicago 2016 Committee, chaired by Patrick Ryan, took a few steps to add even more legitimacy to the bid. On Thursday the committee unveiled the official 2016 Olympic logo for Chicago, developed by VSA Partners. Chicagoist expected to be disappointed in the logo but was thrilled to see it was so well designed. Of course like the Rorschach test, we all may see different things in this logo. The flame obviously is meant to represent our city and its wonderful skyline, while the blue-to-green handle is meant to represent the Chicago's lake front and park system.

As if that was not enough, the Olympic committee also announced on Thursday that Michael Jordan will play a "very important" role in our city's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Between the logo and Jordan, Chicago's bid is starting to look more real. If Chicago is selected by the Olympic committee they would still be up against many great global cities. So far Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid have announced their bids with a ton of other countries still trying to decide whether to submit one. But Chicagoist asks, "Do any of those other countries have a Michael Jordan?" We thought not.