ARLINGTON — Mayor Margaret Larson announced at the June 15 City Council meeting that June 23 will be observed citywide as Olympic Day, since Tiffany Hardebeck, Tim Groves and Jamie Shull are all Arlington residents and participate in the growing sport of inline speed skating which is currently under consideration as a new Olympic Sport for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Hardebeck and Shull are advancing to national finals to be held the week of July 19 in Peoria, Ill.

Olympic Day is June 23 annually in more than 160 countries.

At the urging of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley during the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January in Washington, D.C., Mayor Margaret Larson joined with fellow mayors across the country in a collective pledge of support for hosting the Olympic Games in Chicago in 2016.

Arlington’s proclamation and the community’s cooperative celebration with other cities will send a clear message to the International Olympic Committee that our city 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.

Olympic Day is a worldwide commemoration of Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s first International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting at the Sorbonne in Paris June 23, 1894.