Mayor Mufi Hannemann is back in Honolulu today after a quick trip to Chicago in support of that city's bid for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Members of the International Olympic Committee arrived in the Windy City yesterday to assess its bid to host the Summer Games.

Hannemann traveled at the invitation of the Chicago 2016 Bid Committee and Mayor Richard Daley. The two are co-chairmen of a public-private task force convened by the U.S. Conference of Mayors that was formed to determine how the conference can best support the 2016 bid.

Chicago is competing with Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo.

“;The Olympics will be great for Chicago and for our nation,”; Hannemann said in a news release. “;Honolulu and other cities stand to benefit tremendously from new opportunities the games will create for the travel and sports industries.”;

Honolulu — as well as other U.S. cities — could be training sites for athletes or serve as stopovers for travelers heading to and from Chicago, he said.

Hannemann left Honolulu on Saturday.

The trip was paid for by the Chicago 2016 Bid Committee and included $3,051 for round-trip airfare, $1,087 for three nights of hotel accommodations and $500 for meals.

The International Olympic Committee is set to meet in October in Copenhagen, Denmark, to make its final selection.