Beijing's position as firm favourite to win the battle to host the 2008 Olympics risks being severelychallenged today when the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) evaluation report is released.
The Chinese capital had been touted by many IOC members as a near certainty to win the most glittering prize in sport but leaks from theevaluation commission suggest that it could be trailing arch-rivals Paris and Toronto.
Earlier this year the 16-strong evaluation committee led by Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands toured all five candidates - Beijing, Osaka, Istanbul, Torontoand Paris - to study first hand their bids.
According to IOC sources the report makes clear that Paris, Toronto and Beijing, in that order, are the firm front runners with Osaka and Istanbultrailing behind.
Technically Beijing suffers from the fact that most of its venues have still to be built. Visitors, including the evaluation committee, are taken tothe seventh room of a hotel and told to look out the window towards Mongolia to the north.
The view is filed by a large expanse of fields and trees. That, guests are told, is where the centrepiece of the Chinese bid will be.
In contrast, Paris and Toronto have many of their venues already in place.
Although the IOC produces an evaluation report for every Olympic bid the 2008 report takes on extra importance because of the ban on membersvisiting the five final cities.
The ban was ordered in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal that saw six members expelled and four others forced to resign.
Bidding cities, all of whom were angered by the sudden ban on visits, are now counting on a favourable evaluation report to help boost theirchances when the vote is taken at the IOC Session in Moscow on July 13th.
Beijing has been campaigning heavily, countering claims, especially from the United States, the country should be barred because of itshuman rights records. Instead it claims the right to host the 2008 Games would boost human rights.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch wrote to the evaluation commission before they began their visits, warning them that taking political issuesinto consideration was not part of their brief.
But although the report will make no political comment, senior IOC member and presidential hopeful Dick Pound, raised the stakes last week whenhe announced that politics could not be removed from the decision to appoint the 2008 Games host.
AFP