CHICAGO—The proposed Olympic Village is close to the Art Institute of Chicago, which is close to Soldier Field, which isn’t too far from both the planned Olympic Stadium and Millennium Park.
It’s just one of the messages organizers of Chicago’s 2016 Summer Olympics bid will stress time and again to the International Olympic Committee delegation in town to inspect the city in coming days.
“They’re going to see the very short distances and the time it takes to get, for example, from this hotel to the Olympic Village, from this hotel out to Washington Park (the site of the proposed Olympic Stadium),” Pat Ryan, the head of the city’s bid, told reporters at the Fairmont Hotel on Friday.
“They’re going to see, from north to south, from east to west, it doesn’t take very long,” Ryan said.
Ryan said IOC members also are going to see that those who attend the games will have access to more than just a sporting event, including world-class cultural attractions.
“I don’t know of another city in the world that can show the integration and give the quality of life, and culture of the city,” he said.
To drive home that point, Ryan showed a touch screen monitor illustrating just how compact a Chicago Olympics would be—a point organizers have long been making.
Another point Ryan hopes the IOC takes away from its visit is just how accessible the games would be to everyone from people with disabilities to those who may not have tickets to the events.
He envisions, for example, people watching rowing competitions from high-rises that line the lakefront, or watching events going on inside the Olympic stadium on the outside walls of the stadium itself.
“A few hundred thousand people … can be watching on the screens of the skin of the stadium,” he said.
Another of the organizers’ themes is that not only is Chicago a global city, but a friendly city of neighborhoods and ethnic diversity—a place where visitors from around the world will feel comfortable.
“Sixty-five-plus languages, different languages are spoken by the volunteers,” Ryan said. “And that’s Chicago. Chicago really is a city that was built by immigrants … and they rebuilt it after the (Great Chicago) fire.”
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley also touched on the diversity theme.
“We really reflect the entire world,” he told international reporters attending an evening event for IOC members at the top of the city’s John Hancock Building, a 100-story skyscraper that had views of many of the proposed venues.
It was no accident that Friday night’s event was held in a place where IOC members could see almost all the venues just by looking out the window, said United States Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel.
“From this special vantage point you can see what Chicago has to offer,” Seibel said.
Organizers have made it clear they will try to assuage any concerns about Chicago’s ability to plan for the games in these perilous economic times. There have been many comparisons about what is going on now and what happened during the Great Depression, so organizers will point out that Chicago hosted a successful World’s Fair during that time.
The new CEO of the USOC, Stephanie Streeter, also emphasized the harmony between Chicago bid officials and the USOC
“There has never been a partnership like the one we have between the USOC and (Chicago) 2016,” Streeter said.
The IOC team is scheduled for meetings and presentations by the city’s organizers through Tuesday. Perhaps the most important day will be Sunday, when they will take a bus tour of proposed venue sites.
Chicago is the first stop for the IOC inspectors. They will conduct similar inspections in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid before the IOC votes in October on which of those cities will be awarded the 2016 games.
