Pacific Ocean or Lake Michigan. Sunset Strip or Magnificent Mile. L.A. glitz or Chicago brawn.

One of America’s two iconic cities will get the nod Saturday as the country’s candidate to host the 2016 Olympics.

Although winning this part of the selection process will be something to celebrate, it will only be the start of the hard work.

The real race is in the quest to win over the International Olympic Committee and earn 60 votes in 2009, when the games are awarded. The field is expected to also include Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Tokyo. Finding a way to win those 60 votes has been the crux of every speech, every presentation, every detailed list of instructions the U.S. Olympic Committee leaders have given the cities since the USOC commandeered and retooled the domestic selection process 21 months ago.

“The winner will be the city our board will believe has the competence to sell 60 international voters,” USOC chief executive officer Jim Scherr said.

Neither Scherr nor Bob Ctvrtlik, who led the USOC effort to refocus its selection process, would handicap Saturday’s vote in Washington.

“We don’t have enough time for me to start doing an analysis,” Ctvrtlik said.

Basically, the decision comes down to which strengths the 11-person USOC board of directors wants to highlight in its bid and which risks it feels it can more easily obscure. There are big differences, which figure to once again come to the fore when the cities give their final, 40-minute presentations before the vote.

In Los Angeles, the USOC would have a candidate with major venues already in place – a spruced-up LA Coliseum would host opening and closing ceremonies and track – and a long record of hosting big events, including the 1984 Olympics, the first to turn a profit.

There’s also the glitz factor. But the Summer Games have already been there twice, and the typical concerns about LA sprawl and logistics certainly will factor in.

In Chicago, the USOC would have a first-time host for the Olympics that offers the promise of a compact games with gleaming new facilities set across the backdrop of Lake Michigan.

But the venues, including a $366 million stadium, aren’t built.

Nobody at the USOC can forget the 2012 Olympics selection process debacle, when financing for a New York City stadium fell apart a month before the IOC vote.

One of the most telling moments in this process came last November when San Francisco dropped out after learning its hopes for a stadium had been scuttled when the 49ers unexpectedly nixed negotiations for a new downtown venue.

Worse, the news broke while the USOC was holding a seminar for the cities, emphasizing the need to avoid big surprises.

“I think it’s a testament to our process that San Francisco chose not to go forward when we were insistent on a high level of guarantees,” Ctvrtlik said. “The guarantees that have come from both of the cities are, by far, the highest level of security ever provided by a U.S. bid city.”

Both cities are relying mainly on private financing, with government guarantees backing parts of the bids.

There was, however, a little hiccup when Chicago officials acted surprised at the USOC’s requirement of millions in government guarantees should the Olympics not turn a profit. Ctvrtlik said the IOC would want to see governments “have some skin in the game.”

The Chicago City Council eliminated any doubt about its commitment by voting recently to provide up to $500 million in government money to underwrite the games. The California government also just authorized $250 million in state money.

Assuming the USOC board is comfortable with both bids’ financing, the vote then will come down to which city can promise the best experience and leave the best post-Olympic legacy.

Mostly, though, the board members must vote for the city they think can win in 2009. Nobody within the USOC is taking that as a given.

“We understand that the rest of the world and the Olympic movement thinks the United States is an important market,” Scherr said. “But we don’t think we have a leg up in the process, and we don’t think we’re entitled to host the Olympics. We’ve got to make a good-faith bid, and we’ve got to do it in a way that helps us earn that right.”

AP-ES-04-12-07 1849EDT