A record 130 Olympic and Paralympic athletes will gather in Chicago April 13–16 to tell their stories to more than 450 members of the media at the U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit at the Palmer House Hilton. The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) event is the official preview of the U.S. Olympic Team that will compete in Beijing, China.
The athletes will take part in press conferences, broadcast and photo sessions, roundtable interviews and special NBC interviews (which will be the source material for some of the in-depth profiles during the television broadcast). Sports Illustrated and USA Today will have special studios at the hotel to prepare for their massive coverage of the event.
The summit will also give Chicago 2016 representatives the chance to share key details of the bid’s plan for the Games with media from across the country. In addition to the activities during the day, Chicago 2016 will host a series of events for the media in the evenings.
Patrick G. Ryan, the chairman and CEO of Chicago 2016, notes, “Having so many great athletes in town serves to highlight that the Games are first and foremost about sport. While these great athletes are in town, we hope they will get a chance to see how athlete friendly our city and our bid plan are.”
Among the 130 athletes currently confirmed to participate, 51 have previously competed in an Olympic or Paralympic Games, including 35 medalists. Athletes of note include swimmer Michael Phelps (Towson, Maryland), a six-time Olympic gold medalist from the Athens Games; track and field standouts Allyson Felix (Los Angeles, California), Jeremy Wariner (Waco, Texas) and Sanya Richards (Austin, Texas); as well as U.S. Women’s National Team soccer athletes Abby Wambach (Rochester, New York), Heather O’Reilly (East Brunswick, New Jersey) and Kate Markgraf (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan). Paralympians such as Jessica Galli (Hillsborough, New Jersey) and Scott Winkler (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) will also be in attendance.
The USOC has held U.S. Olympic Team Media Summits since 1988. Host cities for the event have included Colorado Springs, Atlanta, Houston, Salt Lake City and New York City. The largest group of athletes to attend the event previously was 96 athletes, who went to New York City in 2004 to preview the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
Chicago is honored to be competing for the privilege of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games alongside such world-class cities including: Baku, Azerbaijan; Doha, Qatar; Madrid, Spain; Prague, Czech Republic; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo, Japan.
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About Chicago 2016
Chicago 2016 is a 501(c)(3) corporation whose mission is to seek the privilege of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Chicago. The committee’s board comprises business, civic, athletic, cultural and academic leaders representing Chicago and the surrounding Midwest region. Patrick Ryan serves as chairman and CEO. Contact: Mica Matsoff, 312-861-4826, media@chicago2016.org.