Mayor Marty Blum announced Wednesday that the Santa Barbara City Council will present a proclamation marking June 23 as Olympic Day.
To celebrate, the city’s Parks & Recreation Department will host mini-Olympic events from June 22 through 26 for its Summer Fun Camp participants, including a mini-swim meet at Los Baños pool, international flag making and a track and field meet supported by Club West at SBCC’s La Playa stadium.
Olympic Day is a worldwide commemoration of Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s June 23, 1894, convening of the first International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting at the Sorbonne in Paris, and the founding of the Modern Olympic Games. National Olympic Committees (NOCs) throughout the world will also participate in the international celebration, with each Olympic Committee sending Olympic Day greetings to participating nations.
At the urging of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley during the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January in Washington, D.C., Mayor Blum joined with fellow mayors across the country in a collective pledge of support for hosting the Olympic Games in Chicago in 2016.
Wednesday’s mayoral proclamation and the community’s cooperative celebration with other cities will send a clear message to the International Olympic Committee that Santa Barbara and the United States of America support the Chicago 2016 bid for the Olympic Games. An announcement of the site for the 2016 Olympic Games is forthcoming in October 2009.
Terry Brown is youth activities supervisor for Santa Barbara’s Parks and Recreation Department.