Chicago 2016 Presents To PASO

Chicago 2016 made its first formal presentation at the General Assembly of the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) in Acapulco on Saturday in a 25-minute showcase in which bid officials said they have stayed true to the global template for a successful Games with a compact set of venues, a population mad about sports, and a picturesque lakefront setting.

The Chicago Tribune reports that presenters tailored their sales pitch to tout the city's Latino character, speaking in Spanish and English to about a dozen International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.

Chicago officials showed the creation of an Olympic stadium in Washington Park that would include a "living skin" of TV screens on the façade so neighbours could watch, and they used computer animation to show venues integrated into the lakefront.

In relating to the primarily Spanish-speaking delegates, Manuel Laborde, Chicago 2016's director of Latin American relations, said at the presentation how his family emigrated from Colombia about a decade ago and instantly felt at home, reports the newspaper.

He added, "really, you don't even have to speak English. We feel perfectly comfortable in a city so safe and so beautiful".

The presentation also featured photos from restaurants in a primarily Mexican neighbourhood, and a sketch of the iconic "Bean" sculpture placed atop the bottom half of a round Aztec calendar.

Bid spokesman Patrick Sandusky reportedly said following the presentation that Chicago's status as the most diverse of the four bid cities would be stressed at other regional gatherings to directly appeal to IOC members from around the world.

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