This could be one of the most competitive Olympic bidding processes in history, and Mr. Rogge said he believed the bids' merits, and not any factor like sympathy for New York because of the Sept. 11 attack, should be decisive.
But, there is a larger cautionary tale emerging from the Castle bid that merits further examination.
What told against the old masters was the loss of the mood of overconfident optimism in which so many works had been bid up beyond their merits.
He said: "We've assessed all of these bids on their merits and not on the basis of who is making the bid.
Ms Furse's best course of action is clear: fight any bid on its merits and hire a good caterer.
CommonWealth has also fought this bid not on the merits but through legal machinations.
And it never hurts to get multiple bids and compare their merits.
And Alstom's renewables business appears to have been left to languish on the vine.Both bids have the merit of putting cash in Alstom's coffers, strengthening its sub-scale energy operations and opening export markets outside Europe.
As was the case with every other member of Fifa's executive committee, our bid team had to convince Mr bin Hammam of the merits of our bid".
It also enjoys a narrow lead in the Around the Rings Olympic Bid Power Index , and Livingstone's BidIndex , two mathematical models that rank the merits of each bid.
