Supporters of Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Games will be making the rounds among International Olympic Committee members the rest of the week, but the next crucial step in the process will be in Utah next month.

Members of the newly created IOC Evaluation Commission are coming to Salt Lake City in September to gather information for the all-important report that will be used to narrow the number of competing cities from nine to four.The battle for the four spots may be tougher than expected. Salt Lake City continues to be labeled the front-runner, but nearly all of the candidate cities now appear to have strong bids.

Before bid documents were submitted to the IOC earlier this month, the final four were widely thought to be Salt Lake City; Sion, Switzerland; Quebec, Canada; and Ostersund, Sweden.

Now, following presentations Saturday to the IOC Executive Board, the rest of the bid cities are being mentioned more frequently: Jaca, Spain; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Tarvisio, Italy; Sochi, Russia; and especially Graz, Austria.

"Overall, the cities are stronger than I thought they'd be," said Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee President Tom Welch. "I think it keeps the playing field divided."

Salt Lake City, which narrowly lost the 1998 Winter Games to Nagano, Japan, started this campaign with a base of support among IOC members. Ostersund, Jaca and Sochi also bid for 1998, but Sochi dropped out before the vote.

Welch and the dozen or so other Utahns in France to lobby for the bid spent two hours in Salt Lake City's display booth on Monday, the opening day of the Centennial Olympic Congress.

More than 3,000 athletes and others are in Paris for the six-day Congress, where the future of the Olympic movement will be discussed. Salt Lake bid officials are more focused on the 89 members of the IOC.

Many IOC members visited the bid cities' display booths set up in the massive CNIT center located in a major Paris business district, La Defense. Salt Lake City's booth quickly filled.

Welch greeted most visitors by name, slapping backs and kissing cheeks. Each IOC member left with a bag containing a stuffed toy moose sealed in a can and other gifts, as well as a promise "to do lunch."

Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini, Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee Chairman Frank Joklik and their spouses helped the small talk along while other bid officials kept glasses filled with beer and soft drinks.

Because so many cities are bidding for the 2002 Winter Games, last January the IOC changed the selection process, establishing an electoral college to choose the four finalists.

The electoral college will be made up of sport representatives, the chairman of the evaluation commission, IOC member Thomas Bach of Germany and members of the IOC Executive Board who aren't from bidding countries.

IOC teams have always visited bid cities to judge their ability to host an Olympics. For 2002, however, the process has been upgraded to include visits by financial and environmental experts for the first time as well as officials from the past two Winter Games in Albertville, France, and Lillehammer, Norway.

The evaluation commission's job is "to see if what is written in the bid books is true," said Gilbert Felli, IOC director of sport. "If cities don't have the facilities, we have to check their ability to do it."

The report on the bid cities will not include rankings or recommendations and will likely be much more detailed than previous IOC team reports, especially in technical areas.

It is up to the electoral college to interpret the evaluation commission's findings, Felli said. While they are expected to base their choice on technical merits, that could change if more than four cities measure up.

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"If there are six with the same ability, they (the evaluation commission) will come up with some other arguments to reduce that to four," Felli said.

Other arguments could include balancing the finalists geographically.

The evaluation commission will visit each city, starting with Salt Lake City and Quebec sometime between Sept. 18 and 24; Jaca, Ostersund and Sion, Oct. 9-18; and the rest, between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11.

Salt Lake City is acknowledged to have a technically strong bid and expects its efforts to get a boost from the report. "We're looking forward to a tough review," said Dave Johnson, bid committee vice president.

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