The sublime moments of sporting excellence which are the very essence of the Olympic Games, will be far from the minds of its ruling body - the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - when it votes today on the venue for the 2004 summer games. The contest for the rights to stage the biggest spectacle in sport has become almost as intense as competing in the games themselves. Years of campaigning and lobbying by the five contending cities - Athens, Buenos Aires, Stockholm, Cape Town and Rome - will come to a dramatic conclusion in Lausanne this evening when the IOC president, Mr Juan Antonio Samaranch, delivers the five-ring circus to the winning city.
Hosting the Olympics is now viewed as a glorious opportunity to revitalise a city, boost national economies and garner political kudos. It is hardly surprising therefore, that President Nelson Mandela, who has made the Cape Town bid his personal crusade, found it necessary to fly to Switzerland yesterday in a last effort to sway IOC members in favour of South Africa. A vote for Cape Town would underpin the political and economic future of the country and its continent. It should appeal to an Olympic movement which rarely lives up to its high-minded ideals.
If Africa is united in its efforts to win the 2004 games, Europe is very much divided. Athens, Rome and Stockholm are squaring up to each other in an increasingly bitter battle. The Swedish bid, damaged by recent bombings in Stockholm, is the rank outsider. Athens, which successfully hosted the recent World Athletic Championships, has seen its bid undermined by Mr Primo Nebiolo, one of the real power brokers of international sport.
Mr Nebiolo leads the Rome bid and his position as president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), gives him considerable influence to call in favours from IOC members. However, Athens is never slow to remind the IOC of its place in Olympic history. Being the cradle of the modern games should carry considerable weight, as should IOC guilt over awarding the badly-organised centennial games to Atlanta.
As well as the Nebiolo factor, Rome's confidence is based on the fact that many of the requisite facilities are already in place and the city's attraction to the privileged elite of the IOC, who may fancy being cossetted in the opulence and style of the Italian capital. Buenos Aires's bid is very much a marker for the future. It should be remembered that the Brisbane and Melbourne bids failed before Sydney won the 2000 games.
With up to one third of the IOC members believed to be still undecided on their vote, the promises, backhanders and political strokes will continue right up to this evening's secret ballot. However large, more sumptuous and more bombastic the Olympic Games become, winning the rights to stage them is still seen as the ultimate prize in sport.