Early next year, a scout team led by Nawal El Moutawakel, a Moroccan gold medalist, will visit Chicago (as well as the other cities competing for the 2016 Olympics) to look at the pros and cons of each city hosting the games. The group will then present a report to the IOC presenting its assessment of each city but will not make an official recommendation to the IOC. Another member of the team, Taiwan's C.K.......

Who owns Chicago2016.com? Currently, MBA student Stephen Frayne Jr., who bought the domain back in 2004. But now the Chicago Olympic bid folk, whose website is currently Chicago2016.org, and the USOC are suing him, claiming the site belongs to them. "We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid," said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for......

A new season of Oprah premiered on Monday, and the week kicked off at a magnitude only the Big O herself could accomplish. She assembled an audience of thousands in Millennium Park for a huge Welcome Home celebration that honored basically the entire flippin' U.S. Olympic Team. (Hell yeah we were there.) After a tear-jerker highlights reel and a procession of the athletes, our Olympic heroes spent the show answering questions. We learned: Jason Lezak......

The hugely popular Michael Phelps will be participating in a live chat today to promote Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Phelps told Oprah this morning that he's focusing a lot of his energy on his newly announced foundation that will promote youth swimming programs and water safety.......

Chicagoist headed to the taping of Oprah's Olympic-themed season premiere this morning, along with thousands of other Oprahphiles. The big O welcomed 153 Olympians from Team USA, which was quite a spectacle, but she only interviewed the usual suspects: Michael Phelps (who was then joined briefly by Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale), Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin (who talked about reading The Secret, ugh), the men's basketball team (only Kobe Bryant and Jason......

Oprah Fans, get to Millennium Park now if you want a chance for a ticket to Oprah’s 23rd season premiere staring 150 U.S. Olympic athletes. The show will tape next Wednesday. Tickets are normally only available by phone, and are hugely impossible to get. So if you want to see Oprah “welcome home” the U.S. athletes, or see Michael Phelps up close and in person, get to Millennium Park now. Certainly, Oprah will be giving......

Mark your calendars! Michael Phelps—perhaps you've heard of him—will be in town Wednesday to support Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. It's not clear yet what he'll be doing exactly. [Crain's]......

As the 2008 Beijing Olympics fade into memory, it appears as if Chicago is the current front-runner for the 2016 bid over Rio, Madrid, and Tokyo thanks, in part, to a low-key approach. One unnamed IOC source told the Tribune, "It's Chicago's to lose...If they don't muck it up, they should win." Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky tried to downplay Chicago as a favorite, saying, "We think it's still far too early in this race......

Aaaaaaaand that's a wrap! Whew. After 16 action-packed days, the 2008 Summer Olympics have come to a close and America brought home the most medals (110) in spite of a fantastic effort by the host nation, China (100), who brought home more golds (51) than anyone else. And Chicagonia fared well themselves. We have no problem calling this one of the more exciting Olympics we've seen. Drama, intrigue, age controversies, this Games had it all......

We're inside the final 24 hours of the current Olympiad and there seems to be no need for Jack Bauer. Lots of Gold Medal team finals to go and many with Chicago connections, including both men's and women's indoor volleyball and men's and women's basketball. If Chicago were a nation (say, Chicagonia), it would wind up with a pretty dang decent medal count, eh? I, for one, am in favor of this new nation. I......

As we're entering the final days of this Olympiad, and focus turns to team finals rather than individual finals (though holy crap this Bolt kid is ridonkulously fast!), we're happy to see many of our area athletes still in the thick of the competition, especially with Gold Medal finals happening. Friday's action was light, but a pair of U.S. squads featuring Chicago-area members were in action, battling on towards more Gold. Full results after the......

Unlucky 13. Foreboding as we come down the home-stretch and find ourselves knee-deep in the team medal rounds. While some teams, like the beach volleyball team of May-Treanor/Walsh won gold for the US, some teams, including one with a few Chicagoans, weren't so lucky, including one absolute shocker. Hey, they can't all be Gold and nothing's wrong with Silver. At least in the opinions of those of us who have never made the Olympics. All......

While gymnastics has taken over for Michael Phelps in providing all the fireworks and dramatics this week, several Chicago-area athletes are providing drama of their own as part of several U.S. teams entering the medal round. It's "win or go home" time and while we'll be happy to welcome back our athletes with open arms, we hope they get to extend their stay in Beijing just a little longer to bring home some medals. Basketball,......

We're coming down the homestretch of the competition now, having completed 12 of the 18 days of competition (while the Olympics are "officially" 16 days long, there were two days of preliminary action before the opening ceremonies). And while China has dominated the gold medal count, Team USA continues to maintain a slight overall lead over the host nation. A few Chicago-area athletes were in action today, doing their part to help the US maintain......

Michael Phelps is a badass. To do what he did is unfathomable and he did it with grace, dignity, and respect to himself, his fellow swimmers, and Mark Spitz. But thank God swimming is over because if NBC showed Phelps' mother in the stands reacting to a race one more time, I was going to tear my hair out. This is the network's fault in doing what they do best : taking a very sweet......

We've hit the half-way point for the Olympics but there's still plenty of excitement, including Michael Phelps heart-stopping gold medal race. At this point, we suspect he may just be toying with our emotions just to keep us interested. But our Chicago-area Olympians, including Christine Loukas and Dwyane Wade, are providing some fireworks of their own and keeping us glued to our televisions. Which is a good thing, right? Screw it. Go Team Chicago!......

About this time on Friday afternoons, we start getting Friday brain. We feel punchy. We feel silly, maybe a little argumentative, and certainly unable to complete substantive tasks or engage in meaningful discourse. Sometimes, this becomes a leg-wrestling tournament. Sometimes a walk around the block to play that stupid road trip game where you put the word "anal" before the names of cars ("anal Explorer," "anal Liberty," etc). Today, Marcus and I decided to discuss......

The Chicago 2016 Committee unveiled its new commercial, narrated by CSI's William Peterson, a Chicago native. The copy is rousing, positively busting with civic pride, etc, etc, but man, that stock footage looks cheesy.......

A few days before the Olympic games in Beijing started, a 25-year old Rockford volunteer died in Beijing and American and Chinese authorities have been mum on the topic, according to a report by ABC 7. Ann DeWaters apparently died on August 4 as the result of a fall, but reports have ranged from a fall from a train to falling through a building's roof. State Department officials refused to comment on the incident as......

Mayor Daley's back from Beijing, where it was revealed that all his ideas are orchestrated by a somewhat less adorable mayor, and he seems more determined than ever to secure Chicago's Olympic future. According to the New York Times, Mayor Daley is a "sanguine-enough politician" to know that Chicago's 2016 possible festivities wouldn't be on the scale of Beijing's. I'm not sure if this paragraph is meant sarcastically, but it certainly could be: Daley and......

Team USA's softball team extended its overall Olympic winning streak to 16 games with the help of Cat Osterman's no-hitter, shutting out Australia 3-0 in a rematch of 2004's gold medal game. Osterman, when not competing with Team USA, serves as an assistant coach for DePaul's softball program, and lives in Lincoln Park. She joined the program in 2007 after finishing her illustrious career at the University of Texas in '06. USA Softball Player of......

Was anyone else pumped when, during the Men's Basketball game against China yesterday (Dwyane Wade = 19 pts, 2 stl, 2 ast), NBC decided to forgo their usual Olympic-themed background music and instead brought back their old John Tesh-penned "NBA on NBC" theme music? It was worth getting up early for that alone. That wasn't the only excitement from our day of Olympic-watching: later Sunday night (Monday morning, Beijing time) we saw one of our......

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are getting ready to start have already kicked off and, well, it seems that not many folks are as enthusiastic about it as some of us are (one of us has even participated in an Olympic Torch relay). So forgive us if we seemed a bit excited this morning because we dig that time every four two years when the world comes together to celebrate the pageantry and......

As Hizzonner continues his whirlwind tour of Beijing, the Trib* took us along for his little train-ride the other day. As it turns out, if you spend $7.7 billion on a transit system, it A) looks nice, B) operates well, and C) would be lovely to have in case an Olympic games somehow ends up in our neck of the woods. Oh, and if we want one, we're gonna have to pony up. Who knew.......

Mayor Daley's heading to China next week for the Olympics and, he says, to check out Beijing's public transit system. Daley's one of several members of a Chicago delegation headed to the games, which is great because there's nothing going on here that could use his attention. The Olympics start August 8 and run through August 24.[AP]......

The Chicago 2016 committee and Mayor Daley co-hosted a massive fundraiser in Millennium Park last night, raising more than $12 million for Chicago’s Olympic bid. Unlike former speech-heavy Olympic celebrations, the gala fundraiser event, “Chicago Believes,” was presented in the format of a concert, dipping into some of the best entertainment that Chicago has to offer. We didn’t make it for the pre-performance athletic demonstrations in the park, such as the rhythmic gymnasts performing in......

Next Monday, Millennium Park will be busting with Olympic spirit. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago are teaming up for a “Chicago Believes” fundraising event at Pritzker to support the 2016 Olympic bid. Hosted by Chicago 2016, the performance is part of a larger Olympic celebration that will include athletic demonstrations on the park’s Great Lawn, as well as a send-off to the Team USA members preparing to travel to Beijing. Lawn......

Pat Ryan, head of Chicago's 2016 bid, says he thinks our Olympic-hosting hopes are in fine shape, despite the recent and ongoing violence. "In terms of it resonating with [International Olympic Committee] voters and saying Chicago is an unsafe city, I don't think that would be the case at all," he said. The IOC has already evaluated Chicago's safety and found it acceptable. Which might be why the city feels so comfortable throwing down $85......

The landlords of the 37-acre, 127-year-old Michael Reese Hospital announced they will be pulling the plug on operations, citing ownership changes, increasing competition, and the rising number of uninsured patients who can’t pay their bills. The closure is anticipated to happen some time this fall, making way for the property to be redeveloped for the 2016 Olympics. The closing will bring to an end a vibrant life for a historic medical facility on the......

For our lunch break this afternoon, we headed down to Daley Plaza for the Chicago 2016 rally to celebrate the city's being chosen as a Candidate City. The rally featured a bevy of athletes and speakers, including a special appearance by Chicago resident/Illinois Senator/Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. The new logo was unveiled as well, and it's...exactly the same as the last one with the Olympic rings added to the bottom. Here are some pictures we......