One thing is certain; nothing is certain

2012 Olympic Games IOC bidding meeting: It takes a special kind of person to endure and prosper at these IOC congresses. As Frank Sarto, a former mayor of Sydney, said of the experience of campaigning on behalf of his city in Monte Carlo, "We went every day to the Hotel de Paris and we whored ourselves".

If the bookmakers are to believed, the best whoring of the current campaign has been done by Paris (coals to Newcastle, whores to . . .?) and London, with the other three cities lagging behind at a remove which preserves their dignity but doesn't narrow their chances.

At Raffles City, a hotch potch of hotel, shopping mall and convention centre, yesterday the London contingent, all neatly attired in matching uniform so you can cross the road if you see them coming, were insisting there were perhaps five or fewer votes separating the leaders. The French, fed up to the teeth by now of the tinny, excitable London team, were rolling their eyes and asking, they know this how?

And that's the point. Nobody knows. When pressed, even the most ardent volunteer lobbyist will concede that point. The city of Manchester went through this process twice and its high point was putting together 11 votes the second time around. Its bid leader, Bob Scott, noted, however, that had all the votes he had been promised come through Manchester would have won on the first round of balloting.

Scott was operating in a different era too. Most IOC votes had a price tag. When Manchester lost out in the running for the 2000 Games, they had to stand back and look at Sydney sneak in and pip long-time favourites Beijing by two votes.

On the night before the vote the Australians had gone to two African IOC members and effectively bought their votes by promising grants of almost $30,000 to each for spurious causes. The next day two votes was the winning margin, even though then-president Juan Antonio Samaranch had allegedly had a three-line whip out coralling the vote for Beijing.

These days, when the bidding cities have less to offer by way of personal gifts and even the chances of lobby are governed by strictly Victorian ideals of l'amour propre, it is hard for an IOC member to be bought and harder still for anyone to be sure the IOC member will stay bought.

So Paris go into the final day with a lead shorter than any they have enjoyed for two years. Or maybe they don't. Most of the noise in the lobbying area has been made by spin doctors, celebs and media types. As IOC president Jacques Rogge said while eyeing the whole circus: "Journalists don't vote.

"I'm a very sober man," he said. "Yes, I like to see Olympic champions. I don't think the whole candidate process must be one of glitter and stars though."

So many scenarios are possible. The race for the 1996 Games was Athens' to lose. In the first round of voting it still looked that way. Atlanta wound up winning with room to spare. When Athens finally snagged the Games for 2002, they got just 32 votes in the first round against a splendid bid from Rome. They wound up with 66 votes in the final round.

What is sure is that for at least three of the five cities there is everything to play for as they line up to enter the convention centre for their presentations and Q&A sessions with the 116-strong electorate. Even New York and Moscow have been involved in a battle to the death to avoid last place. The vigour with which that battle has been waged (celebs on one side, free vodka on the other) has some people pondering a doomsday scenario where the votes promised to either city in the first round is enough to knock one of the favourites out early, thus causing chaos in the ensuing rounds.

As insulation against that, Paris has one thing going for it that the other cities don't. Paris, the bid and the city, is familiar to most IOC members. The Parisians bid for both the 1992 and 2008 Olympics, and many IOC members will recall Jacques Chirac as mayor of Paris wowing them at a previous presentation session.

Each time Paris was mugged by a strong favourite. Samaranch had hand-picked Barcelona for 1992. Beijing were virtually owed the 2008 Games, having lost out to Sydney for 2000. Paris, though, took the disappointments on the chin and built up a contacts book and a list of promises that next time it would be different.

In this campaign they have presented a rational and economic plan for an Olympics. It will be a tremendous shock if they don't make it to the last round of voting, an earthquake if they are eliminated early.

That experience of IOC congresses, of course, doesn't have to be earned the hard way. These events are high-stakes gambling binges conducted by crazed political adrenalin junkies, and as such get more manic as the vote approaches.

"It's almost a frenetic and frenzied atmosphere," said Charlie Battle of the New York bid team yesterday as the campaigns moved towards a state of perpetual apoplexy. "This is the most competitive and high-profile race they've ever had. It was just bound to reach this critical mass."

Battle knows what he is talking about. He is a gun for hire who cut his teeth years ago getting the IOC to give the Games to his native Atlanta. While the bids being considered in Raffles Hotel come from Paris, London, New York, Moscow and Madrid, all the dollops of distinctive favour which the cities spoon-feed to the IOC are cooked up by five teams of stateless schmooze mercenaries.

The Brits have borrowed heavily from the Australians and from Vancouver's winter Olympic bid. The Russians have a smattering of Barcelona veterans on board, as do Madrid.

The final presentations will be pitched precisely at those 25 or 30 wavering IOC members who have been identified by bid veterans who tote dossiers dealing with every fact of the IOC member's life: their background, their prejudices, their likes, dislikes, their children's names. It's a delicate business, and veterans are inclined to shudder when they remember the damage caused by the mayor of Toronto during the last campaign when he made an off-the-cuff joke about being boiled in a pot in Africa, thus killing off Toronto's chances in three seconds flat.

The presentations, a series of multi-media shows, need to be not just slick but ideally should generate a little surprise. Sydney's use of children in 1993 brought a tear to the eye of the then godfather of athletics, Primo Nebiolo.

The Russians announced with some pride yesterday that president Putin would not just be participating in the Russian presentation via a live satellite link-up but - ta-da! - he would be speaking in English. Russian premiers don't do such things, but the linguistic breakthrough seemed to mean more to the Russians than to anybody else in Singapore.

London were promising an as yet unspecified "jaw-dropping" surprise, which is dangerous territory because the IOC members don't like to be disappointed when it comes to jaw-dropping surprises. Nelson Mandela doing the Lambeth Walk or any of the more prominent royals naked and playing badminton are the least that is expected at this stage.

Paris have brought in Luc Besson to direct what is said to be a surreal film segment, bravely taking the risk of just confusing the elderly IOC members. New York's delegates will be sweeping in wearing Oscar de la Renta designer garb. Only Madrid, whose earnest, punctilious campaign has plodded along in mid table, have declared themselves a glam-free zone.

It could mean anything. It could mean nothing. As Keith Mills of the London bid commented wearily, "There must be a better way".