Chicago still favored, with Rio next, for Olympics/ WE DO NOT NEED THE GAMES HERE IN CHICAGOAT ALL

COPENHAGEN – The tense and tight battle to host the 2016 Olympics sped toward its climax with Chicago, backed by President Barack Obama's star power, the bookmakers' favorite Thursday after a long, emotional and at times acrimonious campaign. The stakes are huge for all four cities — Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid — and for the International Olympic Committee. It faces the choice of sending the games to uncharted territory in South America, appealing to those committee members who believe the Olympics should touch all corners of the globe, or opting in tough economic times for more familiar and perhaps more lucrative ground in Europe, the United States and Asia. The winner gets the international prestige of staging the world's biggest sports extravaganza and billions of dollars in potential investment. The losers will rue what might have been. According to British bookmakers, Chicago was pulling away in the last hours as the clear but not overwhelming favorite over Rio, with Madrid and Tokyo lagging. "But don't forget that Paris was the favorite to beat London the last time," said Graham Sharpe, spokesman for betting agency William Hill. "The favorite doesn't always win." Years of preparations and lobbying by the four candidates will come down to 30 minutes of voting by the IOC's members on Friday afternoon, when they will eliminate the city with the fewest votes in successive rounds of secret balloting until one city receives a majority.