WHILE Tibet is rightly dominating Olympic headlines, a fascinating contest for the right to stage the 2016 Games is warming up nicely under the radar.

 

Seven culturally diverse but vibrant cities – Baku, Chicago, Doha, Madrid, Prague, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo – are locked in a fight which is, in its way, as absorbing as the spellbinding 2012 race.

 

As members of the 15-strong International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board pack their bags ahead of their meeting next week in Beijing, the moment when this august body will select which of the 2016 septet go forward to the next stage in the selection process is fast approaching.

 

This will come the next time they gather, on June 4 in Athens.

 

Here they will reveal how many of the applicants have been accepted as official Candidate Cities, sanctioned to slug it out all the way until the winner is elected on October 2, 2009 at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen.

 

Beijing to consider first

 

Executive board members themselves were keeping understandably quiet on the subject this week: after all, they have the small matter of the Beijing Games in just four months’ time to preoccupy them.

 

The question of the moment, though, in the run-up to the Athens decision is whether the board will plump for a shortlist of five, four or even three Candidate Cities.

 

And the matter is of sufficient importance for the Olympic Movement that it would be a surprise if it didn’t receive at least cursory attention at next week’s Beijing meeting.

 

Right now, the situation may be summarised as follows: it is widely assumed that three cities - Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo – will make the cut; it is widely assumed likewise that two cities - Baku and Prague - won’t.

 

But what of Doha and Rio?

 

With fewer than 60 days to wait for the answer, the speculation and rumours are flying.

 

Under the most elaborate of these to have reached my ears, certain highly influential figures are supposed to be doing their darnedest to see to it that the shortlist is limited to three.

 

(In the scenario outlined to me, the 2018 World Cup would be reduced to a bargaining-chip, so I am not for now taking it too seriously.)

 

Having said that, it is easy to appreciate, after witnessing the gruelling odyssey of the 2012 selection process, how the notion of a three-city shortlist might appeal to some hard-working members of the Olympic bureaucracy.

 

On the other hand, five Candidate Cities has been the norm for the summer Games in recent contests.

 

World Cup warm-up for Olympics

 

You can see too how advice might be reaching IOC President Jacques Rogge to the effect that, with an election for that post due in 2009, it might be better not to risk upsetting IOC members from Latin America or the Middle East.

 

In any case, you might add, a truly globe-straddling five-way contest for 2016 would be a pretty good advertisement for the health of the Olympic Movement.

 

Certainly, neither city can be excluded lightly. Rio hosted last year’s Pan American Games.

 

Brazil will also be staging the 2014 football World Cup (although it is conceivable that perhaps not everyone at Fifa would be thrilled about acting as a glorified Olympic warm-up event).

 

The Brazilian city also missed the cut in the ferociously tough race for the 2012 Games.

 

It might take it badly were it to fall once again before the grand finale.

 

Doha also has big-event experience in the shape of the 2006 Asian Games and, from what I hear, its facilities and infrastructure are stunning.

 

A highly positive political message could be fashioned too from the fact of staging the Games in the turbulent Middle East.

 

Wrong dates

 

One possible Achilles heel is the proposed timing of the Games, which Doha wants to stage in the second half of October, rather than the IOC’s preferred July 15-August 31 window.

 

Qatar does also seem at first glance an astonishingly small country to be aspiring to stage an event as vast as the Olympics.

 

But then, it has the wealth to be able to make light of this – especially with energy prices at current levels.

 

And this – wealth – is why, I am told, Doha’s audacious bid has really grabbed the Olympic world’s attention.

 

As it was put to me, the potential depth of its pockets is such that, if it clears the next hurdle, then “all bets are off” and the possibility of Doha springing the biggest shock in Olympic bidding history on the back of a well-funded and aggressive global campaign could not be altogether discounted.

 

At the very least, it was suggested, the anticipated slickness of Doha’s efforts – spearheaded, I have to say, by the most charmingly mild-mannered of bid committee chairmen, in the shape of Hassan Ali Bin Ali - would “raise the bar” for everyone in matters such as advertising spending and could prompt budgets to “disappear through the roof”.
 
At the moment, all five front-runners, including Doha, have indicated they expect to spend between $40m and $50m on their bids.

 

If all five make it onto the Athens shortlist – as I hope they do - it will be interesting to see, in due course, whether these figures bear any relation to reality. 

 

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup. Now freelance. He was shortlisted for a 2006 Race in the Media award for a piece about swimming. He has twice run the Athens Marathon. Owen has written about sport all over the world from dogsledding in Yukon to cricket in Chicago and football in Japan and South Africa.