Imagine the best soccer players in the world fighting for Olympic gold on Ryan Field. Imagine the world’s best athletes competing in a triathlon on North Avenue Beach. Imagine Chicago hosting the 2016 Olympics, and Northwestern University as one of the event’s key sites.
The 2016 Olympic site will not be decided until Oct. 2009. Yet Northwestern athletic director Mark Murphy and World Sport Chicago chairman Bill Scherr believe that Chicago is currently running second behind Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. According to Murphy and Scherr, Northwestern will play a large role in the 2016 bid.
“There is a heavy NU flavor to the Chicago bid,” Murphy said.
The topic fueled discussion at the 2007 College of Commerce and Industry’s annual Business Symposium on Nov. 1.
In preparing to compete internationally to secure the Olympics, U.S. applicant city Chicago has announced it will work with local universities, including Northwestern, to provide athletic venues for the Olympics. Involvement would require Northwestern to changes its sports facilities to meet the standards required for hosting events
Although the board is still in its early planning stages, it is expected that Ryan Field would be the site of the preliminary rounds of men’s and women’s soccer.
In addition to using NU space, Murphy says NU would supply athletes as well.
“There is a good chance of seeing many Northwestern athletes in the 2016 Olympics…[including] Mike Alexandrove and Jake Herbert,” Murphy said.
Weinberg freshman Meghan Park says Northwestern’s involvement would boost the university’s image internationally.
“[The olympics] will be good for Northwestern, and it will probably increase the number of applications,” Park said. “It would increase the interest in Northwestern and alumni pride would increase. It would probably lead to more unity amoung the people here.”
The influx of people to Chicago for the Olympics would transform the city into an ‘international’ city and, according to Murphy, the influx of people into Evanston to attend the events would boost local business.
“Even though Chicago is the 3rd largest city, when international people come from abroad they like to travel to New York or LA, and so even though Chicago is third, it is a distant third,” McCormick sophomore and co-event planner Ankur Sisodia said.
Both Scherr and Murphy also discussed the possibility of Olympic Village being turned into affordable living units and industrializing areas of the lakefront. These changes together, according to Scherr, “could take the city thirty to forty years forward.”
To accommodate the Olympics, Chicago plans on using its lakefront and many parks as sites for hosting events such as the Triathlon on North Avenue Beach, Archery in Grant Park, and canoe/kayak and slalom courses at Lincoln Park.
Sisodia said looking toward 2016 is inspiring.
“When 2016 happens, we will be in our late 20s and early 30s,” Sisodia said. “We will be the people who make the decisions. And to see such a strong interest level at such age speaks volumes of our potential.”