The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to select the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics at a Moscow general meeting in July, according to the IOC rule that says selection should be made seven years before the summer or winter games are held. To collect the necessary data, the committee is sending a fact-finding mission to five cities bidding to host the 2008 Games -- Beijing, Osaka, Toronto, Istanbul and Paris. The first such mission was dispatched to Beijing last week.

After completing the tours, the delegation -- which includes four IOC members, representatives from national Olympic committees and sports organizations, and a member of the International Paralympic Committee -- will submit a report to an IOC directors' meeting in May. The final decision will be made on July 13. With the bidding race entering the homestretch, speculation is rife as to which city will be selected.

A Reuters dispatch last Wednesday jolted Osaka officials involved. It said many people see Beijing as the favorite venue, effectively ruling out Osaka and Istanbul. Beijing has long been considered an odds-on favorite. In its last invitation to the 2000 Olympics, it lost to Sydney by a narrow margin. This time around, Chinese officials are taking a different spin, stressing that Beijing, the capital of China, has never before hosted the Olympics. The implication, it seems, is that Osaka ought to stay out of the race because Japan has already hosted the Olympics three times, in Tokyo (1964), Sapporo (1972) and Nagano (1998).