The city’s proposal to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games has strong ties to Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago. The bid’s motto, “Stir the soul,” plays on the famous words attributed to Burnham: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” And in the spirit of the Burnham Plan, the effort’s mastermind aims to leave a great physical legacy for future generations of Chicagoans.

Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin spoke with Chicago 2016 chairman and CEO Patrick Ryan (left) about the bid. An edited transcript follows:

Q. What’s the relationship between the history of the modern Olympic Games, which were founded by French educator Pierre de Coubertin, and the Burnham Plan?

A. De Coubertin was developing the modern Olympic movement in Paris at the same time Burnham was developing the plan for the City of Chicago. There’s a real kinship between the two of them in their ideals and visions: the importance of body and mind; the importance of aiming high; and the importance of achieving lasting results.

Q. How are you drawing upon these connections in preparing Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Games?

A. As we were planning our Olympic bid, we looked back in history to see the impact of the Burnham Plan. The vision that he had — of the lakefront and keeping the parks open and everything for the people — is something that really shapes our plan.

Q. What sort of legacy might the 2016 Games leave in Burnham Park and the portion of that park called Northerly Island?

A. We are talking about using Northerly Island a lot more to build upon Burnham’s vision. During the Games, Northerly Island would be the site of beach volleyball, sailing and canoe/kayak events. Afterward, we want to create an outdoor recreation oasis on the island.

In addition to a kayak slalom course, the center will have a permanent center for wall-climbing, rafting and kayaking. And there will be a center for youth sailing. We also want to develop the southern section of the island into a wetland environment, to promote conservation and increase the bird population.

Q. How about the southern end of Burnham Park, south of McCormick Place?

A. We’re going to have our Olympic Village on the site of Michael Reese Hospital. There will be a new harbor at 31st Street for sailboats and powerboats. We envision a sizable park over the site of the McCormick Place truck marshaling yards west of Lake Shore Drive. And we are looking at pedestrian bridges over Lake Shore Drive — at least one and hopefully more.

Q. Some park advocates fear that retaining the Olympic warmup pool in Washington Park after the Games would mar the park’s Frederick Law Olmsted-designed landscape. And there already are two swimming pools in Washington Park, one of them attached to a high school in the park.

A. Those pools are really quite old. Like most older pools, they’re too small. We believe that a new modern pool would be a legacy for aquatics and an urban legacy for the people of that community. The pool would go where the school pool is.

Q. It’s not easy being the new Daniel Burnham, is it?

A. We don’t propose to be Daniel Burnhams. What we have done is try to listen to the different constituencies and communities. We’ve been trying to balance all of this, and I believe that we’re coming out right in terms of getting a plan that can win while recognizing the importance of the input of the people from the neighborhoods.

source: featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

Brazil also took the bronze medal in the men’s beach volleyball in an earlier match.

They won in two sets 21-15, 21-10.

China’s Tian Jia/Wang also have a chance to win gold in the same event when they play Walsh/May-Treanor from the United States.

The match is scheduled to start at 11:00A.M. Beijing time.

“This is probably the first beach volleyball match I’ve been nervous in before the match actually started,” said Dalhausser. “Probably because if we lost, I would have been devastated.”

The United States team will face Marcio Araujo and Fabio Luiz of Brazil in the final on Friday.

“We’ll just have to pretend the crowd is cheering for us,” May-Treanor said.

The match is scheduled for Thursday morning at 9:00A.M. Beijing time. The United States team have won 12 straight Olympic matches.

“We don’t really care about the streak,” said Walsh, the Saratoga native who played volleyball at Archbishop Mitty High and Stanford. “We’re just focusing on that medal. We have so much respect for the Chinese team. But we’ve got to work on our own game.”

He even tries to argue somehow that it is not “worthy” to part of the Olympics.

“…beach volleyball is unworthy of the Olympics. While it is clearly a healthful pastime, a fun athletic-ish endeavor, and a fine way for four friends to work off a case of canned beer, it is just as clearly not an actual sport.”

I read an article that beach volleyball was in the top three sports viewed during the Olympics, in the United States, together with gymnastics and swimming. From spectator feedback via Twitter, everyone has said how the beach volleyball has been one of their favorite events. Music, cheerleaders, bikinis, sun and sand, what more could you ask for. Well, an actual beach would be nice, but you can’t have everything.

Beach volleyball was first introduced at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to make the Olympics more appealing to the younger market. Snowboarding has been successful in attracting a new and different market to the winter games BMX will be part of the Olympics for the first time in Beijing.

Beach volleyball is a great spectator sport, both live and on television. I saw a bit of the greco-roman wrestling the other night and to be honest, that has to be one of the strangest sports to have at the Olympics. The only reason it is in the program is because of its long history. Watching two hairy, 100 plus kilos guys rolling around on a mat is what I call entertainment.

"[T]he governing international body for the sport prefers a cleaner look with their country, names, and numbers on their shirt."

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If film stars in sunglasses in dark clubs at night seem ridiculous, it looked even more baffling when beach volleyball players at the Olympics took to the court wearing frames with no lenses.

“The lenses fog up because of the humidity, so you can’t wear the glasses without popping out the lenses,” U.S. men’s volleyballer Phil Dalhausser told reporters on Monday.

High humidity is a regular feature of the weather in Beijing at this time of year.

Several beach volleyball players wear glasses at night to reduce the glare of floodlights or protect their eyes from flying sand but the frames serve no other purpose than sponsorship.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh from the United States beat Japan’s Chiaki Kusuhara and Mika Teru Saiki 21-12, 21-15.

“It felt good out there, it was our first time on centre. But it’s so humid it was kind of hard to get your breath back in long rallies,” said May-Treanor, who with Walsh did not drop a match in Athens.

The temperature has come down a little with the rain, but it is still humid.

“We wear bikinis. We expect to get wet,” said May-Treanor, 31. “We play so much in humidity and sun it’s actually fun to get rain sometimes.”

Read more: Beach Volleyball-US women power into title defence