Chicago 2016 Bid Book To Be Unleashed

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Feb 13, 2009 5:30PM

The official Chicago 2016 bid book will be unleashed at 10:30 a.m. this morning. Tokyo released theirs as did Madrid; Rio plans to unveil theirs at a press conference in London on Monday. So how important are the bid books? Kinda sorta.

All four cities have spent enormous amounts of time and gone to significant expense to prepare documents that will likely be read to completion by few of the 100-plus International Olympic Committee members who choose the host city Oct. 2.

But the bid books, in which the cities provide detailed answers to IOC questions on 17 themes, can factor into the decision.

The information serves as a template for the IOC evaluation commission, which will visit the four finalists in April and May.

We'll be reading along with everyone else and we'll report back later today or, depending on how thick it is, early next week.

Update (11:30 a.m.) - It's out and while we haven't been able to comb through the multi-volume behemoth, we can tell you that it doesn't include any overhaul of the existing transit system. That makes total sense.