What seemed like an impossible dream may become a reality for Mayor Daley and the City of Chicago.
This past Saturday Richard Daley, the Mayor of Chicago, nearly jumped out of his seat when he found out that Chicago beat out L.A. for the U.S. bid to host the Olympics. Chicago and L.A. have been competing to represent the U.S. for the last few months. L.A.’s argument being that they already have structures built to host the Games and UCLA can host the athletes. And of course, they bragged about how the Olympians will feel like “stars” while residing in L.A.
What did Chicago have to offer? The lakefront. Apparently Chicago won on the strength of its emphasis on the relation between the parks, the lakefront and the athletes. That emphasis, according to the Chicago Red Eye “includes an Olympic Village on the lakefront, an “Olympic celebration center” in Grant Park and competition venues along the lakefront from McCormick Place to Belmont Harbor
In addition to all that, Chicago is also planning on constructing an Olympic Stadium in Washington Park, just south of the University of Chicago that will seat 80,000 people. Unfortunately, after the games the structure will be torn down. Seems pointless to me.
My biggest aggravation with the possibility of Chicago hosting the Games is that Chicago can barely maintain its public transportation for the people who live here now. Add another 80,000+ people and what’s going to happen? I realize that 1. Chicago hasn’t won yet and 2. There’s still 9 years….but come on! Chicago has been fighting the CTA for years to fix the problems. Right now, money isn’t coming through for the CTA and we’re stuck with ridiculous delays, unsafe platforms and an incompetent CTA staff. We can’t have 80,000 people here with these types of problems.
But moving on, Chicago is still battling the rest of the world (Baku, Azerbaijan; Doha, Qatar; Madrid; Monterey, Mexico; Prague, Czech Republic; Rio de Janeiro; Rome; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Tokyo). No decision will be made until late 2008 or early 2009 on who will host the 2016 Olympics. By then, I probably won’t even be living in Chicago.
To read more about Chicago and its Olympic endeavors follow these links:
Chicago is the U.S. Candidate
Be Careful What You Wish For
Let The Games Begin
