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CHICAGOANS CELEBRATE PAKISTANI AND INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAYS

Historic Devon Avenue played host to two celebrations on August 16 and 17. The back-to-back Indian Independence Day and Pakistan Independence Day parades both utilized the same street located in culturally diverse Rogers Park. Hundreds of floats proceeded down Devon to kick off each day’s festivities, with celebrities, music groups and political figures all taking part.

Although the parades occurred on separate days, each group came out to witness a spectacular display of South Asian solidarity, all occurring within the heart of the city. Chicago 2016 staff and volunteers were present at both parades to show their support for the Indian and Pakistani communities.

These celebrations followed last month’s historic cricket match held in Bolingbrook between Indian and Pakistani teams, which promoted amateur sport and highlighted Chicago’s diversity. The parades and cricket match also served to demonstrate the harmony and respect between these two communities.

Chicago 2016 aims to celebrate Chicago’s diversity by participating in the hundreds of ethnic celebrations found throughout the city. For more information about upcoming events, please visit: www.chicago2016.org/community.

For more on the Indian and Pakistani communities, go to our Diversity page.

MILLIONS GATHER FOR AIR AND WATER SHOW

Once again Chicago’s tallest office buildings shared their cityscape with whizzing stunt planes.

Chicago’s Air and Water Show, a three-day display of aerial and aquatic acrobatics on Lake Michigan, thrilled millions who came to enjoy great weather and theatrics in the sky. This year’s show marked the 50th anniversary of the event. The Air and Water Show started in 1959 as part of a “Family Day Celebration,” with a meager budget of $88. The exhibition grew enormously in popularity with locals and visitors alike and is now one of Chicago’s major summer attractions.

Crowds lined up along the lakefront to see shows by the Blue Angels and the Liquid X Freestyle Pro Tour, among others. The festival ran from Friday to Sunday.

The event was anticipated to draw a total of more than 2.2 million people, making it one of the largest spectator events in the world. The Mayor’s Office of Special Events has become adept at planning large events, maintaining a comprehensive Web site with information that aided event-goers and encouraged them to use public transportation.

Performances included: the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, the U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights, the F-22 Raptor, the U.S. Navy Leap Frogs Parachute Team, the AeroShell Aerobatic Team, the Firebirds, the Lima Lima Flight Team, Sean Tucker & Team Oracle, Bill Leff Airshows, Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band, the Shell Extreme Watershow and Herb Hunter and the Collaborators. Actor and Wilmette native Bill Murray kicked off the event by parachuting into the show on Friday.

GREVERS WINS SILVER; DANTZLER PREPARES FOR OLYMPIC DEBUT

Lake Forest resident Matt Grevers won the silver medal Monday at the Beijing Olympic Games men’s 100-meter backstroke after finishing in 53.11 seconds. The Northwestern University graduate was thrilled with second. "That silver is beautiful," he said, according to NBC.com.

Grevers, who said he has not been training for backstroke all year, qualified for the event only after swimming it at the U.S. Olympic trials. Grevers instead wanted to swim the 200-meter freestyle the same night, but his coach, Rick DeMont, persuaded him to go with backstroke. Grevers already earned a gold medal for swimming in the preliminaries of the 400-meter freestyle relay.

GREVERS EARNS GOLD, LOSES RECORD

For a few hours, Matt Grevers was a world-record holder.

Swimming the anchor leg in the preliminaries for the U.S. 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay team, Grevers touched the wall in 3:12.23, breaking the two-year-old mark and helping his team grab the top seed for the final. Although they set a new record, Grevers and two of his teammates—Nathan Adrian and Ben Wildman-Tobriner—did so knowing they would likely not participate in the final, ceding their spots to top freestylers Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak, with only Cullen Jones swimming in both relays.

Come the next morning, Grevers no longer held a world record. Instead, he was a gold medalist. The Lake Forest native and Northwestern grad watched the team of Phelps, Weber-Gale, Jones and Lezak shock the favored French team, winning with a record shattering 3:08.24. Having swum in the prelims, Grevers, per Olympic rules, was awarded a gold medal.

Standing six-foot-eight, Grevers is more likely to be mistaken for a basketball player than a world-class swimmer. His 83-inch wingspan doesn’t hurt either, and may play an important role in helping the first-time Olympian out-touch the competition.

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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