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YOUTH SOCCER CLINIC A PREVIEW OF WORLD SPORT CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CUP

On a beautiful summer day in Chicago, kids from four countries were united by a common joy: soccer.

The Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer, along with Illinois Youth Soccer, put on a youth soccer clinic Tuesday in Addams Park as part of the festivities for the 2008 World Sport Chicago International Cup. In attendance were teams from Germany, Nigeria and Mexico, as well as many participants from the United States.

World Sport Chicago, the legacy arm of Chicago 2016 that seeks to promote and create opportunities for youth participation in Olympic and Paralympic sports in Chicago, arranged for 50 campers from Chicago Park District day camps along with approximately 60 youth players from the international teams to take part in the clinic. Behind the scenic backdrop of the Chicago skyline, Fire coaches and players led the youth players in a series of drills, followed by a question and answer session.

“It’s a great opportunity to get the local youth and the local community engaged in soccer with the international teams,” said Amanda Sowa, a project manager for World Sport Chicago.

The event was a preview of things to come at this weekend’s World Sport Chicago International Cup, where eight squads, including teams from Germany, Nigeria, Mexico and the United States U15 National Team, will face off for three days. Thursday’s festivities will take place at the University of Illinois-Chicago, while Friday and Sunday’s matches will be held at both Loyola University and Lake Forest Academy.

“To host these youth events and to get the international teams here give the outside world a view of the type of city that Chicago is,” said Paul Cadwell, senior manager of player development for the Fire and the clinic’s organizer. “Events like this broaden the landscape of what Chicago is about.”

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CHICAGO 2016 VOICES SUPPORT FOR "CHICAGO GAMES" CRICKET MATCH

Chicago 2016 continues to work to engage and partner with the many groups and ethnicities in Chicago and its surrounding areas by supporting events that promote amateur sport and bring communities together.

On Friday, July 18, Bolingbrook Mayor Roger C. Claar, the Federation of Indian Associations, the Federation of Pakistani Associations and City of Chicago Alderman Bernie Stone gathered before a crowd of media outlets at Bolingbrook’s Town Center to announce the upcoming Chicago Games, a historical cricket match between Pakistan XI and India XI to take place at Bolingbrook’s Indian Chase Meadows Cricket Field on Sunday, July 27.

Chicago 2016 was also present at the media event to voice its support for the Indian and Pakistani communities and the Village of Bolingbrook, which was recently named number 32 on Money magazine’s “Top 100 Best Places to Live” list. The match, hosted by the Village of Bolingbrook, the Bolingbrook Park District, the American Cricket Conference and the village’s Association of Pakistani Americans, is equal parts a celebration of sport and culture and calls attention to the unique diversity found throughout Chicago.

For more information on Pakistani-Americans in the Chicago area, please visit our Diversity page.

CHICAGO 2016 CELEBRATES WITH "CHICAGO BELIEVES" FUND-RAISER

Chicago 2016’s “Chicago Believes” event raised more than $12 million in support of the bid to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The evening honored Olympians and Paralympians and celebrated the International Olympic Committee’s selection of Chicago as a Candidate City.
The event took place on a perfect summer evening in Chicago and featured demonstrations from Olympians, Paralympians and Olympic hopefuls from a variety of events; dinner featuring international menu offerings from some of the city’s top chefs; and a free performance held at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

The show celebrated great Chicago Olympic moments and included performances by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Bandoleros, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Cirque Shanghai, the Christ Universal Temple Ensemble, the Merit School of Music and Chicago’s own world-class tenor Rodrick Dixon.

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CHICAGO 2016 OFFERS "I WILL STAND" FOR DOWNLOAD

Chicago 2016 capped its “Chicago Believes” celebration in Millennium Park by introducing a special song entitled “I Will Stand.” The composition, performed by top Chicago vocalists Rodrick Dixon and Alfreda Burke, was inspired by Chicago’s Olympians and Paralympians.

To download this song, please visit our "I Will Stand" page.

Q&A: CHRISTINA LOUKAS

Christina Loukas, a resident of Riverwoods, a Chicago suburb, will be participating as a three-meter springboard diver in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The 22-year-old has already accomplished a lot in her young diving career. She has participated in numerous international diving competitions, including the World University Games in Thailand and the Speedo USA Diving International Championships.

Q: How and when did you get interested in diving? What did you do to practice and improve on that skill?

A: I used to do it just for fun when I was really little growing up. We used to belong to a swim club just for fun, and since I was a gymnast, diving came easy to me. When I was 12 I went to club diving, and I started to really like it, so I quit gymnastics and made the switch over. There were two coaches there, and they coached me all the way through high school. They taught me how to dive and put me into USA Diving meets so people nationally started to know who I was.

Q: What is the history of athleticism in your family?

A: Both sides of my family are athletic. A lot of the news reporters focus on the fact that on my dad’s side, my dad and both of his brothers all played college football. One of my uncles went to play professional football with the Buffalo Bills, and one of my cousins right now is a quarterback at Stanford University.

Full interview

CHICAGO 2016 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE "TASTE"

The 28th annual Taste of Chicago drew to a close on Sunday, July 6, and activities promoting amateur sport were featured on a daily basis during the festival. Chicago 2016 presented sport demonstrations of Olympians and Paralympians throughout the ten-day event and also spread the word about the bid from its booth.

On Thursday, July 3, Olympian Arlene Limas (1988, taekwondo) and five-time Paralympian Paul Moran (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, sitting volleyball; 2008, wheelchair tennis) delivered a reading of the Maya Angelou poem, “Amazement Awaits,” prior to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s performance in Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park.

Solar-powered Chicago 2016 kiosks with counters were positioned at strategic points throughout Grant Park. Over the course of the festival hundreds of thousands of revelers registered their support for the bid.

Chicago 2016 would like to thank all of the athletes and volunteers who made the bid’s presence at the Taste such a success.

EXPERIENCE THE "TASTE" OF CHICAGO

The smell of food wafts in the air as people of all ages taste a full range of the city’s finest culinary dishes. For ten days each summer, Chicago’s lakefront becomes a multicultural culinary celebration, featuring dishes from restaurants across the city. Visitors to the Taste of Chicago—forecast to be more than six million for this year’s installment—can enjoy food from more than 70 restaurants, all against a backdrop of the city’s famous skyline and magnificent beachfront.

This year’s musical performers, such as Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt, provide the festival’s soundtrack, which ranges from old-school soul and R&B to rock and country. Chicago 2016 is offering a full schedule of Olympic and Paralympic demonstrations, as well as several gateways throughout the festival where people can register their support for the bid.

“We come every year,” said Robert Dusek, 44, from the Southeast Side. “It’s just so good. I always get pizza and some kind of Chinese food. It’s just beautiful—the lakefront, the architecture and the parks.”

The Taste of Chicago is the second-largest tourist attraction in Illinois, according to the City of Chicago. The free-admission festival is now in its 27th year and is a perfect place to be on a sunny, summer day.

Restaurant vendors, representing the city’s ethnic diversity, feature food from countries throughout the world such as France, India, Italy, Mexico and Poland. People from across the city, state, country and world travel to this park along the lake to sample the fare, which includes such dishes as pad Thai noodles, tacos, tandoori chicken, polish sausage and samosa.

Chicago’s famous Buckingham Fountain is nestled into Grant Park and provides many convenient areas to sit on the grass or relax near the lake. Next to fountain, the Taste of Chicago’s International Pavilion features cultural activities, demonstrations and entertainment. People can purchase products from Africa, Europe, South America, and Asia.

“It’s just a nice day out to enjoy the different varieties of food,” said Laverne Uwangue, 43, of the North Side. “I like the African food.”

WELCOME TO CHICAGO 2016!

Welcome to the Official Site for Chicago 2016. We are dedicated to strengthening the Olympic Movement and hosting the 2016 Games in Chicago. To bring the Games to Chicago, we need everyone in the community to show their support. Let’s Stir the Soul™ of Chicago and the world. Together we can achieve this goal.

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