Crain's) -- Chicago is leading its competitors in an online poll by a British Web site that tracks the Olympics.
It's the latest poll to show the city's bid gaining ground in the race to land the 2016 games, as Chicago pulls out its heavy hitters ahead of Friday's vote by the International Olympic Committee.
Chicago received 44% of the votes to Rio de Janeiro's 43% in an online poll of 150,000 people worldwide taken by InsidetheGames.biz from Sept. 1 to 30. Tokyo drew 10% of the votes, trailed by Madrid with less than 1%.
Chicago was behind for most of the polling period, but picked up momentum when President Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and Oprah Winfrey, all said they would come to Copenhagen to sell the city to the IOC, said Duncan McKay, publisher of InsidetheGames. Rio has been the favorite in several Olympics tracking polls because of the emotional appeal of bringing the games to South America for the first time.
"It's too close to call and could go either way tomorrow," he said.
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