Chicago the favourites to host Olympics in 2016

CHICAGO are the favourites to win the race for the 2016 Olympics after the International Olympic Committee narrowed the field from seven hopefuls to four candidate cities.

Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid were included by the IOC's executive board yesterday while Prague, Doha and Baku in Azerbaijan failed to make the cut.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said: "All the bids were of a very high standard.