CHICAGO -- When Chicago's business-like 2016 Olympic bid team makes its final presentation in Copenhagen on Friday, expect to hear its purposeful pitch enhanced by President Barack Obama and softened by emotional chords from first lady Michelle Obama, bringing the appeal to its crescendo.

After 2 1/2 years of working to convince International Olympic Committee members that Chicago can deliver a compact Summer Games in the heart of the city, the bid team needs to warm it up to slide past emotional favorite Rio de Janeiro, as well as well-connected Madrid and well-financed Tokyo, observers say.

"We've heard over the past several months that the IOC is looking for the personality side, the heart, the passion," said John Rowady, whose sports marketing firm, rEvolution, has worked with a Chicago 2016-affiliated organization. "That's the cherry on the sundae if they can pull it off."

The president's participation was announced yesterday. The decision was greeted with giddy enthusiasm by some of the voters who will select the host city for the Games.

"I think it is very good for the Chicago bid," said Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, a member of the International Olympic Committee's 15-person executive board. "He is a dynamic person who gets his message across."

Both the president and the first lady will speak at the IOC's full committee meeting Friday.

Mayor Richard Daley's 2016 bid team isn't revealing its entire playbook at this point, and neither are its rivals. But recent comments by White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett have indicated that Michelle Obama's remarks will be "profoundly personal" and unlikely to leave a dry eye in the house.

Mrs. Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, likely will talk about her working-class roots, her family's love of watching sports -- especially the Olympics -- on TV, her love for her hometown and her confidence in the city's ability to deliver the games.

"When Michelle speaks, everyone knows she's speaking from the heart and telling the truth," Ms. Jarrett said.

The city's pitch also is expected to include a talk by Olympic hurdler Edwin Moses, a two-time gold medalist who is highly regarded in the Olympic movement.

Talk-show diva Oprah Winfrey, who will lobby IOC members in Copenhagen, is not expected to be part of the final presentation. Olympian Michael Jordan, who has expressed support for the bid in videos, appears to be bowing out entirely.

To pull off a victory, Chicago will have to wow voters who have been wooed in just about every conceivable fashion.

The Russian city of Sochi, for instance, flew an outdoor figure-skating rink to tropical Guatemala so the Russia Ice Theater could perform "Sleeping Beauty" as part of the city's successful lobbying for the 2014 Winter Games. Rome tried a different tack, presenting famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti, but lost out to Athens for the 2004 Summer Games.

These bells and whistles may be just that, but they raise the bar for candidate-city bid teams, who are well aware that 11th-hour surprises can sway a handful of undecided voters and put a city over the top. Last-minute appeals by Britain's Tony Blair and Russia's Vladimir Putin helped secure London 2012 and Sochi 2014, respectively.

Many observers put Rio and Chicago at the forefront, but caution that both Madrid and Tokyo cannot be ruled out.

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