And they're using the media in whatever ways they can: with a press release last week, the Madrid 2016 group proclaimed itself a "safe choice" in the midst of a global economic downturn -- they're also trying to downplay the city's growing reputation as a racist sports town. Atletico Madrid was forced to play its next two home Champions League football matches at neutral venues.

Atletico has denied all claims of racism, insisting that UEFA officials confused chants of ``Kun, Kun, Kun'' - in support of the club's striker Sergio Aguero, whose nickname is ``Kun'' - with monkey cries.

Tokyo, which scored highest of the four in the IOC's evaluation process earlier this year, received the backing of former French president Jacques Chirac last week. Chirac was in charge when Paris was narrowly defeated by London for the 2012 Games three years ago. And Chicago, in its first formal presentation as an 2016 Olympic finalist on Oct. 12, stressed the city's large Latino population in a regional meeting with IOC leaders in Acapulco. And Rio is working on a new high-capacity transit system it hopes will help land the coveted honor of hosting the Olympics after three missed attempts (1936, 2004, 2012).

2014: With the Sochi Winter Games just six and a half short years away (the happy winners are shown above at last year's Guatemala IOC session), Russia named Dmitry Kozak preparations manager for those Games. Russia Today visits the resort area and files an extended video report on local enthusiasm and venue construction.

2012: With bank failures and government bailouts occurring around the world, the London 2012 organizing committee (LOCOG) is trying to find ways to hold a sensibly-budgeted event in four years' time. It's true, as posited by U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Jim Scherr, that gigantic television deals make the Olympics fundamentally recession-proof, but host cities don't have the luxury of living fully inside that insulated bubble -- local morale was shaken by the news of a secret bailout of 95 million pounds for Olympic Village construction, and Wembley Arena may be taking on a larger role as a multi-sport venue. Another recent development is Sport England's plan to sell venues after the Games are over. Included in the sale will be temporary training pools for swimmers, and the entire water polo venue.

A source said: "Everything that is not screwed to the floor will form part of what can be sold off. The venues will be marketed as having had one careful owner."

Not all of London's financial news is of the down variety, however -- Cadbury has signed on to be a tier-two sponsor of the 2012 Games.

2010: The next major Olympic event will be held in Vancouver in February 2010, and the organizers announced that they ran a $40.5 million deficit in fiscal year 2008, after a $51.3 million surplus in the previous annum. The total budget for the Winter Games is $1.3 billion.

And in sports news...

While most of the statistics out of the Olympics have to do with medals, records, times and (in recent years) doping cases, here's another angle. The IOC released a report last week that stated 1,055 athletes were injured in Beijing two months ago -- that's one in every 10 participants. Most were leg and foot issues, and the details of the report showed which were the most likely sports to result in injury.

The sports most dangerous to Olympians' health were boxing, soccer, handball, field hockey, taekwondo and weightlifting. Each reported injuries to around one in seven athletes. Four sports reported that none of its athletes lost training or competition time: flatwater canoeing, diving, sailing and synchronized swimming.

Obviously, this doesn't takie into account the wounded pride of this blog's watchlisted Egyptian synchronized swimmers, who finished dead-last in every discipline.

And, of course, there's doping news too. In a story that looks small and innocuous now but may blow up into something bigger later, 300 drug tests from Beijing 2008 are missing, according to independent observers who filed a report to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

They also uncovered some surprising deviations from normal drug testing procedures, including the fact that the Beijing laboratory couldn't test for one banned substances - insulin. The observers noted that the samples would be stored for eight years and could be retested if the IOC deemed it necessary. Another concern was that the laboratory had failed to detect one of the quality control samples that had contained a prohibited substance.

But by far, the most sensational Olympic story of the past week, the one that made its way into mainstream news reporting, is that of Liu Zhihua. As vice-mayor of Beijing and head of coordinating Olympic venue construction, he was charged with accepting US $1.45 million in bribes -- and passing a portion of that to several mistresses -- before being fired in June of 2006. Over the weekend, his sentence was handed down: death.

Photo: Icon SMI