At the end of every Olympic bidding campaign comes a decisive IOC vote that spreads joy to one city and desolation to others.

Many remember the scenes of jubilation in 1993, when Sydney was awarded the first Olympic Games of the new millennium.

But Australian joy was tempered by devastation on the faces of those from the Beijing bid committee, after one of the most closely contested Olympic venue battles ever.

The election, held in Monaco in September 1993, went down to the wire, before Sydney won by a mere two votes.

The Chinese capital is the front runner in the race this time round as well, with Toronto and particularly Paris its prime rivals.

A similar duel between a developing world contender and an established former European host decided the venue of the 2006 football World Cup.

Just three days before voting took place in Zurich, Brazil withdrew its bid, leaving England, Germany, South Africa and Morocco in the contest.

When Morocco and England were eliminated in the first two rounds, everything hinged on which country could snap up votes originally given to the already-defeated bids.

South Africa scuppered

The race was so close that much talk revolved around Fifa president Sepp Blatter's pledge that he would back South Africa in the event of a tie.

But to the astonishment of the watching world, Germany won by a single vote.

Charles Dempsey, New Zealand's president of the Oceania Football Confederation and one of 24 members of the Executive Board, made a crucial decision to abstain, which in effect proved the deciding vote for Germany.

Manchester's failure

England's unsuccessful World Cup bid was another blow in what has been a long-running failure to lure top sporting events to the country.

Manchester has failed to gain the support of the IOC for its Olympic bids twice in the last 15 years.

It was knocked out in the second round of voting for the Atlanta Games of 1996 and then again in the race for the Sydney Games.

Neither of their bidding wars, however, were as closely fought as England would have liked.