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Chicago was chosen as a finalist in the International Olympic Committee’s host search for the 2016 Olympics.

According to Chicago Tribune reporter Philip Hersh, the other cities chosen were Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid.

One point of concern for the IOC, however, is Chicago’s public transportation system. The committee issued a report, “Games of the XXXI Olympiad 2016 Working Group Report.” Here’s an excerpt from the report’s transportation section:

The Chicago Application File states that the city expects to spend USD 27 billion on motorway and transit projects by 2016. However, the Working Group found that this figure was not consistent with the existing, planned and additional transport infrastructure project figures listed in the Application File (total amount of USD 2.7 billion).

In general, venues along Michigan Lakefront appear to be well connected to the major coastal motorway (Lake Shore Drive) but are not in close proximity to rail lines and stations. The Working Group had difficulty in identifying the location of transport projects and therefore assessing the coherence between transport projects and the Olympic Games concept.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Stay tuned, folks.

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Several days ago, I received an invitation from the Medill New Media Publishing Project to check out this year’s project. A location-based tour of Washington Park, the proposed site for the Chicago 2016 Olympic Stadium.

The good news: The tour went quite well, and made it clear that location-based storytelling could work under certain circumstances. The bad news: While the walk in the park was, well, not quite a walk in the park — rimshot — the technology is about a year or two from where it needs to be to be effective.

For more information on the tour, check out the group’s post here. (Can’t wait to read the report, guys!)

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It looks like Chicago 2016 is going for a new look.

According to Chicago Tribune reporter Kathy Bergen, the committee recently hired Ogilvy Chicago to take over its presence on the Web.

Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said the Ogilvy is charged to “build a more dynamic and interactive Web site that will better showcase our bid and our city to an international audience.”

Now, the page isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but perhaps it’s a bit too bloggy. However, it would be nice if press releases were posted on time. Perhaps this will change.

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Evidently, someone doesn’t like me.

Seeing as I’m Google’s #1-ranked blogger for most terms related to the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid, I tried linking my “Chicago 2016″ category page to Wikipedia’s entry for the bid as an external link.

It was deleted. Twice.

Here’s a question for you: DanielHonigman.com gets all sorts of visits from folks looking for information about the bid, and I’d like to think it’s a good resources for them. Was it wrong for me to try to promote my page on Wikipedia as a source? If not, was it wrong for it to be deleted? The other two external links up there are the official Chicago 2016 committee page and the Chicago African American Olympic Committee page.

I mean, if I didn’t regularly add bid-related content from various news sources, I wouldn’t have added it. What do you think?

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Last week, it was reported that Chicago 2016 chairman Patrick Ryan met with International Olympic Committee member Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait in early February.

According to the IOC’s rules of conduct, bid city officials can’t meet with IOC members. At all.

Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said Ryan, who serves as chair for Northwestern University’s board of trustees, traveled to Qatar and Kuwait as an emissary for the university’s new Qatar campus and on business for Aon Corp., of which he is executive chairman.

Philip Hersh of the Chicago Tribune reports that the IOC has plans to look into the matter, but they don’t seem to think it’s an issue.

While this may not mean anything in the long run, why risk it? There are seven other NU board members and dozens of trustees. Couldn’t anyone else have gone?

What do you think?

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According to Around The Rings, Chicago has the best bid so far for the 2016 Olympics:

1. Chicago - 79
2.(tie) Madrid - 77
2.(tie) Rio de Janeiro - 77
3. Tokyo - 74
4. Doha - 69
5.(tie) Prague - 55

The site evaluated the bids in several categories, including ambiance, accommodation, legacy, transport and cost. The Windy City scored highest, with 8 of 10 possible points, on accommodation, ambiance and transport.

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Check it out here.

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According to a spokesman for Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, the state never filed legislation to grant Chicago its $150 million net if the Olympics were to come to Chicago in 2016.

Peter Sandusky, spokesman for Chicago 2016 said while the funds are needed to make the bid stronger, the state has until the February 2009 deadline.

The state has recently signed other big checks for Chicago, most notably, its $530 million bailout of the Chicago Transit Authority. But given the Chicago 2016 committee’s initial $2 billion estimate for bringing the games to the city, it’ll need a lot more than $150 million. Let’s just see if someone can make it happen.

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Chicago 2016 committee officials revealed yesterday how much they think the 2016 Olympics would cost if the Games came to Chicago: $2 billion.

Where did they get that figure? Add $900 million in venue construction, spread across five venues, and $1.1 billion for an Olympic Village to be built near McCormick Place.

What do I think of this estimate? I wrote last year about how the London 2012 bid steamrolled its initial budget, its cost (at that time, mind you) quadrupling to a behemoth $19.5 billion dollars.

How about a federal bailout for the CTA? Maybe the IOC can chip in some dough. But I digress.

According to the committee, 45 percent of the tickets would cost less than $50, with 500,000 tickets set aside for children as part of “Chicago’s youth outreach.’’ Total ticket revenue is estimated at $705 million.

What do you think?

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The Associated Press reported that Prague may withdraw its bid for the 2016 Olympics unless it gets money from the Czech government. Tomas Petera, head of Prague 2016 said, “quite frankly we are pressed for time”.

According to estimates, the Prague bid needs about $6.7 billion to compete.

Petera said, “without it our chances equal zero. We are going to have to make a final decision whether to bid or not some time between now and Jan. 14, depending on whether we have the guarantees”.

One down, five to go, I guess.

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