I don’t pretend to hold the thermometer that takes Chicago’s temperature, but if the city is at a fever pitch about the possibility of landing the 2016 Olympics, it’s doing a good job of hiding it.
That’s not to say people are against the idea of the Olympic Games coming here. Most people seem to be for it in the same way they’re for, say, cleaner air. It’s hard to get hold of something that feels like vapor.
People will get excited when there’s something to get excited about. Like in October, when the International Olympic Committee chooses a winner among Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo. That might sound like a bad attitude but we’re not Salt Lake City or Atlanta, smaller cities whose identities were riding on whether they produced a winning bid.
We know our city’s great, and we know we’ll put on a great Olympics. If we don’t get the 2016 Olympic Games, well, it’s our loss, yes, but it’s also the world’s loss. Call us cocky, but there it is.
The most recent “big” development in the ongoing pursuit of five-ringed affirmation is that an IOC delegation will give our town the once-over, beginning Thursday.
We can’t actually show them much of anything having to do with the Olympics because there’s hardly anything to show yet, at least in terms of many concrete structures.
Over the next few days, it will be up to Chicago 2016 organizers to create something out of nothing. There’s a Sunday pep rally at Douglas Park. It’ll be a chance to show, on cue, we’re enthusiastic about our city — sort of the equivalent of the Fan-O-Meter for Bulls games at the United Center.
The delegation’s stay this week will be highly choreographed. Children will be playing soccer at Soldier Field when members stop by to check out the stadium. Tennis players will hit balls at Lincoln Park, where the Olympic tennis competition would take place.
The idea is to give the impression of a citywide buzz that would pass any IOC drug test. You might have seen the ads that Chicago organizers recently took out in both Chicago newspapers, the ads that ask you to cut out the “We Back The Bid” box and display it, preferably on your forehead. You can bet that any route the organizers use to transport the delegation will be papered with that message.
It sounds, comrades, a lot like China’s very controlled, very structured, very we’ll-banish-you-to-the-countryside-if-you-don’t-behave approach.
For those of us in favor of the Olympics coming to Chicago, there’s a mixture of defiance and helplessness as the selection process continues.
If pep rallies and groups of people gathering to cheer as IOC members drive by in limousines are the kinds of things upon which we rise or fall, that’s not good. We would much rather prefer to be judged on our city’s international flavor, its beauty, its friendliness and its ability to put on a world-class event.
Right now the whole undertaking seems so distant. Aside from a few protest groups, people don’t seem vociferously for or against the Olympics coming to Chicago.
From the huddled masses, you hear things like, “I think it’d be cool if we got the Olympics.” Or, “Oh, man, traffic’s going to be a nightmare.” Or, “We’re worrying about the Olympics in this economy?”
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Mostly you hear, “Where are the Bears in the Jay Cutler sweepstakes?”
No one appears to be on the verge of setting himself on fire in protest.
You see figures being thrown around — the $3.3 billion it’s estimated it will take to run the Games here — and the mind goes numb, which is what organizers want. When they say the Olympics will create jobs, make money for the city and spruce up downtrodden neighborhoods, be very skeptical. Those are promises all Olympics make. They’re rarely realized.
I don’t think that matters to most people. The Chicago group says 77 percent of Chicagoans support the idea of the Games coming here. We like the idea of the world coming to our doorstep. If and when the world arrives, it will see that we’re more international and cosmopolitan than most of the cities that have been lucky enough to host the Games, a list that includes Sydney, Turin, Italy, and Athens.
Drive those IOC members down Lake Shore Drive, pray for sun and let them look at Lake Michigan in all its blue and green disguises. Have them look at the skyline from LSD near the Chicago River and gaze upon the awe-inspiring architecture. Let them walk along the Magnificent Mile at night. This is us.
Take us or leave us.
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