Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid Passes Another Milestone

By Todd McClamroch in News on Jan 10, 2007 5:11PM

Chicago has passed another milestone in its efforts to win the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. On Tuesday, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) announced its intentions to submit a bid for the 2016 Olympics. The USOC will choose between Chicago and Los Angeles as the city of choice for the United States' bid at a board meeting scheduled for April 14. Chicago and Los Angeles are expected to submit formal plans to the USOC by January 22. Next, the USOC will send an evaluation team to each of the cities to conduct two-day technical evaluations prior to the April 14 board meeting.

Pat Ryan, Chicago 2016 Chairman, followed up the announcement by the USOC with some Chicago financials. Ryan pointed out that the city has already raised $25 million dollars through private and public contributions to support the Chicago bid. Chicago also continues to promote that our city could offer one of the most compact Olympics ever. Ryan stated, "Eight-five percent of the athletes will be 15 minutes or less from their competitions." That is, except for the soccer players, as the new plan is to move the preliminaries as far away as Minneapolis.

Cities that could be competing with the United States representative city could be: Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Tokyo, Doha, Madrid, New Delhi and Istanbul (ah, or was it Constantinople — we can't remember). The list of finalist cities will be provided to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in September of 2007. The IOC will then have until October of 2009 to review the applications and select a host city for 2016.

Whether you are for or against Chicago hosting the Olympics, this bid that many at first thought was some kind of a joke has become stronger and stronger each month and in Chicagoist's eyes is looking like a favorite for the 2016 Olympics.