Two candidates are found lacking, so the choice for the 2008 Summer Games comes down to three.

Making sense of the process of picking the city to host the quadrennial Olympic Games is not easy. Think of it as a sort of papal consistory on steroids. Like cardinals sequestered to vote for a new pope, the 122 members of the International Olympic Committee will lock themselves into a conference room in the World Trade Center in Moscow on July 13 and not leave until white smoke rises to proclaim a winner from among five candidate cities: Beijing, Istanbul, Osaka, Paris and Toronto. While the voting takes only a day, cities campaign for years to be selected. After all, this is about much more than prestige. Over its four-year cycle, a summer Olympic Games could generate $10 billion in spending for the host city.

With all that money at stake, no wonder the selection process has a questionable past. In 1998 evidence surfaced to indicate what Olympic insiders have been whispering for years: that bid cities like Salt Lake City, host of the 2002 winter games, had showered I.O.C. members with gifts — fully paid shopping trips for spouses, college scholarships for children and even cash in envelopes for members. Chastened by the scandals, the I.O.C., long a notoriously secretive body, publicly scrubbed itself clean. Members were expelled. New regulations were drafted forbidding members from visiting candidate cities, imposing a limit on gifts and even banning cities from throwing cocktail parties for I.O.C. members. Recently when a flight carrying a member of the I.O.C. from Seoul to Frankfurt made an unscheduled stop in Beijing for a medical emergency, I.O.C. member Alex Gilady called I.O.C. president Juan Antonio Samaranch to confess that he was — gasp! — in a bid city and begged not to be reported to the ethics committee. Gilady was only half joking.

The I.O.C. appointed a 14-member commission to visit the five bid cities. The new ethics rules were scrupulously followed. No gifts, please, we're Olympic inspectors. "We paid all our bills," said Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the evaluation commission. "The bid cities bought us one meal — usually a very good meal — but that's all." Last week in Lausanne the evaluation commission issued its 108-page report. Two cities, Istanbul and Osaka, were found lacking, thus virtually killing their chances of being chosen. The commission said that both places had serious flaws in their financial plans that could not be overcome. The Japanese claimed the commission had jumbled the figures on Osaka's public finance obligations to the tune of $25.5 billion and vowed to file a rebuttal. The Turks, who have built an impressive array of new sports facilities in hopes of being the first Islamic city to host the Games, were not at all deterred. "We might still win in Moscow," said Yalcin Aksoy, director general of Istanbul's bid. "What happens if you don't?" he was asked. His reply: "We will run for 2012. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon."

Indeed it is, and who will finish first is far from certain. The bids of Paris, Beijing and Toronto were all rated "excellent" in the report with only minor, easily fixed deficiencies for each. It was a dead heat among them. "Excellent is excellent," said Verbruggen. "There are no degrees of excellence." But that did not stop city supporters from deconstructing the report in search of advantages. The Toronto team claimed the words excellent and strong were used more often in describing their burg than the other two cities. After the report was released Claude Bébéar, president of the Paris bid committee, was beaming. The report, he said, confirmed that Paris' plan to stage the games within the heart of a historic city with, for example, fencing events in the Grand Palais was feasible. "For many members," he said. "I am sure this will make a very big difference. What more beautiful place for the Games is there?" If Sydney could win on a promise to stage the triathlon, in the harbor beside its Opera House, Paris may have an edge by offering to run cyclists down the Champs Elysées.

But Beijing, not Paris, is thought to be the front-runner. In 1993, the Chinese lost the 2000 Games to Sydney by two votes in a surprising upset, and Beijingers think it's payback time. It may also be Asia's turn for the Games. Atlanta had them in 1996, Sydney in 2000 and they will be in Athens in 2004. China's case has support from influential I.O.C. members, including Samaranch, who believes that bringing the Games to China will foster the Olympic ideals of sportsmanship and fair play in the most populous country. "If the eyes of the world are focused on China because of the Olympics," asks Gunilla Lindberg, an I.O.C. member from Sweden, "don't you think it will become a more open society?" She clearly does.

In the bar of Lausanne's Palace Hotel, where I.O.C. members traditionally repair after a hard day of deliberations, it's more difficult than ever to count votes. The I.O.C. is not quite the old boys' club it used to be. More than 20 younger men and women, including active athletes elected by their peers, are now among the 122 members. No one is sure how they will vote. Regional groupings — East Asians, French-speaking Africans — once a key factor, are less likely to vote as a block. The 57 European members are also divided. The only sure thing is that once the I.O.C. locks itself into that Moscow conference room, there is no sure thing.