As I’m sure you’re aware, Chicago was selected as a Candidate City by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) earlier this month. We could not have accomplished this milestone without the support and interest of all of you. While we are grateful to have made it into the next round, we are competing against three world-class cities in Madrid, Rio and Tokyo. The IOC also released its Working Group Report, which is an assessment of each city’s technical plan for the bid. You might have heard Chicago was third among the four finalists. We aren’t focused on where we are ranked at this point in the process. Instead, we are analyzing this feedback and will use it to strengthen our plan. The bid is also preparing to send a delegation to Beijing as part of the IOC’s Observer Program. We’ll have the opportunity to experience the Games in an official capacity as well as to spread the message about Chicago to an international audience. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on our progress.

We have just 15 months left in a bid campaign that started more than two years ago. There’s much work to be done, but I and the rest of the bid team will be doing everything we can to put Chicago in the best position when the IOC announces the Host City in October 2009. Thanks for your continued interest in this endeavor.

Best regards,

Pat Ryan

On Monday July 14, 2008, Chicago 2016 will celebrate the Olympic Movement and Chicago’s selection as a Candidate City—and raise funds for the bid—with an event called “Chicago Believes.” Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago 2016 Chairman and CEO Patrick G. Ryan will host this special evening, which will take place in Millennium Park and feature performances at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion by some of Chicago’s finest entertainers. The program will also showcase historic Olympic moments that have a connection to Chicago and include a send-off to members of Team USA as they prepare to travel to the Beijing Games.

We need the support of our entire 2016 team. Purchase tickets for a package that includes reserved performance seating, a reception featuring sport demonstrations by Olympians and Paralympians and dinner by famous international chefs. If you are unable to attend but would like to contribute to the bid effort, please go to our Donations.

If you cannot attend the dinner but would like to watch the program for free from Millennium Park’s Great Lawn, remember that the sport demonstrations start at 4:30 PM, with the show set for 8:00 PM. Beverage and food concessions are available, so bring friends and family for a great summer evening.

Chicago is competing with three other world-class cities for the honor of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Your support is vital in achieving the dream of bringing the Games to Chicago.

In an effort to open a dialogue with the citizens of the world, the International Olympic Committee has created the Virtual Olympic Congress, a digital platform that provides the Olympic Family and the general public with an opportunity to share ideas and provide input. The overall topic of the Congress is “The Olympic Movement in society”; themes cover athletes, the Olympic Games, the structure of the Olympic Movement, Olympism and youth and the digital revolution. Each theme has subthemes that pose more specific questions. Visitors to the site can submit detailed essays on any or all of the themes, and each will be reviewed by the IOC. Contributions must be in French or English and must not be longer than 1,000 words. Submissions will be accepted until December 31, 2008.

This is a rare and unique opportunity to be heard by the leaders of a Movement that is active instilling the values of friendship, excellence and respect in young people in more than 200 countries throughout the year. So please weigh in on the direction of the Olympic Movement and share your opinions and insights on how this great global trust can best benefit our world.

From June 21–28, Chicago’s lakefront provided the setting for the 2008 Etchells World Championship Regatta. The event was presented by World Sport Chicago (WSC), the “living legacy” of Chicago 2016’s Olympic Games bid, and hosted by the Chicago Yacht Club.

This prestigious international sailing event, which started at Belmont Harbor, is part of a continuing effort by World Sport Chicago to bring world-class Olympic and amateur sporting events to Chicago. The Etchells is a fast, stable 30-foot sloop that can be raced competitively and safely by three or four sailors. To be eligible to race in the Etchells World Championship, each skipper had to qualify in his or her home fleet. For the 2008 Worlds, the top 23 percent in each fleet were eligible to enter and race in the championship.

More than 80 yachts with some of the world’s top sailors competed for the Etchells world title. Countries represented in the race included Australia, Bermuda, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States. The Chicago Yacht Club has a very active Etchells Fleet (Etchells Fleet 11) that has been competing since 1973.

The weeklong event also included a demonstration sailing day for select high-school students from Rickover Naval Academy, a Chicago Public School. Thirty-two students were paired with top skippers from around the world for a race in Belmont Harbor.

On June 19, the United States Olympic Committee hosted an induction ceremony for the class of 2008 into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. The event, held at Harris Theater in Chicago, featured some of the most recognizable names from past Games. The ceremony was taped for broadcast on NBC later this summer. A number of activities were scheduled in Chicago around the ceremony, including a gymnastics demonstration in Union Station by the 1996 gold-medal U.S. women’s gymnastics team—the “Magnificent Seven”—and local gymnasts. Allstate, in conjunction with the USOC and the Chicago Park District, broke ground on a memorial playground named in honor of Jesse Owens.

The Class of 2008 includes the following inductees:

• Individuals: Karch Kiraly, Bruce Baumgartner, Joan Benoit, Brian Boitano, Oscar de La Hoya, J. Michael Plumb, David Robinson, Amy Van Dyken and Lones W. Wigger, Jr.
• Paralympian: John Morgan
• Coach: Carlo Fassi
• Veteran: Carol Heiss Jenkins
• Team: 1996 Women’s Gymnastics Team—Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps and Kerri Strug
• Special Contributor: Frank Marshall

With the addition of the Class of 2008, 213 athletes (including seven U.S. teams), coaches, and 13 special contributors to the U.S. Olympic Movement have been enshrined in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

Chicago 2016 continued its outreach efforts throughout the metropolitan region over the past month, with an emphasis on meeting with members of the city’s many ethnic groups. These residents will play an important role in spreading the message about Chicago to people from their native countries. As always, Chicago 2016’s float rolled through a number of parades to celebrate cultural festivals. Look for Chicago 2016 at the Taste of Chicago Festival running through July 6. Here are just some of the events we’ll be participating in over the next month:

• July 3–6: African Caribbean International Festival of Life, Washington Park
• July 4: Independence Day Parades, Aurora, Evanston, Evergreen Park, Homewood, Waukegan
• July 10: Niketown Bastille Day 5K Run/Walk and Block Party, Chicago West Loop
• July 12: I Have a Vision Community Gospel Festival, Grand Crossing Park
• July 12–13: Mayor’s Youth Cup Soccer, Lincoln Park/Montrose Harbor
• July 20: Chinatown Summer Fair, Cermak and Wentworth in Chinatown
• July 26: Disability Pride Parade, Daley Plaza
• July 26: Venetian Night, Monroe Harbor

Visit our Community Center for a summary of what we’ve been up to in the community.

U.S. Paralympics named 44 athletes to the 2008 track and field squad that will compete in the Beijing Paralympic Games this September following the trials held June 12–15 at Arizona State University. Eight athletes from the Midwest made the team:

• Adam Bleakney (Champaign, Illinois)
• Edwin Cockrell (New Athens, Illinois)
• Joshua George (Champaign, Illinois)
• Tony Iniquez (Aurora, Illinois)
• Anjali Forber-Pratt (Champaign, Illinois)
• Jessica Galli (Savoy, Illinois)
• Amanda McGrory (Champaign, Illinois)
• Kerri Morgan (St. Louis, Missouri)

With the exception of McGrory and Morgan, all have previous Paralympic experience under their belt. In addition, Bleakney, George, Forber-Pratt, Galli, Iniguez and McGrory all hail from the University of Illinois. The school has long been known as a mecca for disability sport, developing many stellar Paralympic athletes in wheelchair track and basketball over the past fifty years.

The U.S. women’s wheelchair basketball team defeated Germany 50–37 in the final game to take the championship in the 2008 North American Cup at Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama, an official training site of U.S. Paralympics.

The top four women’s teams in the world—#1 Canada, #2 USA, #3, Australia, #4 Germany—got to test their readiness for Beijing in a smaller but no less competitive setting. In a repeat of another tournament a few weeks before, Germany and the United States faced off in the final, with the United States emerging victorious and with a 5–0 record for the tournament.

Local athletes Patti Cisneros (Lake Station, Indiana) and Jen Ruddell (Champaign, Illinois) both had a hand in the victory, with Ruddell being named MVP of the tournament on the strength of her 14 points in the championship game.

With guts.

That is the way Chicago native and new Paralympian Greta Neimanas lives her life. The 20-year-old cyclist qualified for Beijing this month at the U.S. Paralympic Trials despite the adversity she has faced since being born without a left hand and forearm.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Neimanas. “I sent my mom a text message—I didn’t get a chance to call—and she was stalking people at work with: ‘Do you want to read my text?’ My grandma cried.”

Neimanas will compete in the 500-meter time trial, the 3-kilometer individual pursuit and the road time trial in the track cycling events. “The trials went really well,” she said. “My times are coming down.”

She burst onto the scene in 2006, when she earned a bronze medal in the road time trial at the U.S. national championships and competed in the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Championships in Switzerland. A year later, at the world championships in Bordeaux, France, she took third in the road time trial, placed fourth place in the track time trial and finished fifth in the road race.

An avid skier and kayaker, Neimanas grew up playing soccer but started to get “burned out on the team sport deal, and was ‘in the market’ for a new gig” when she started cycling. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago introduced her to adaptive sports and to the Paralympic Academy, which she entered because she figured that she “had nothing to lose.” Now she lives at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

“Bike racing is my life. It’s what I train for every day, rain or shine, 7 days a week,” she said. “I go out every day and put myself in the pain cave, and I love it. I have my goals and I’m going to reach them. Maybe not this year, or next year, or even in four years, but one day I’ll get there.”

Neimanas spent a week in Chicago to recover from the Paralympic Trials. She took part in the “Bike to Work Media Challenge” on June 13 as an ambassador for Chicago 2016 and rode with her former club team, XXX Racing-Athletico, on June 14. Now it’s back to training for Beijing.

“It’s nice to see all of my work paying off,” said Whitney Young graduate Neimanas, who hails from Bucktown. “This is the big show. It’s a little big bigger than the world championships.”