The first gold medal of the 2012 Olympics will be awarded tomorrow, to the winner of the host-city bidding in Singapore. If you want to follow the exciting competition, however, don’t wait for the “medal ceremony” to be shown on-screen at Rockefeller Center.

The drama begins to unfold live on television with the five cities’ presentations to the International Olympic Committee, beginning with front-runner Paris at 9 p.m. today New York time, followed by New York at 10:30, and then the other bids running through to 5 a.m. tomorrow. As a convenient alternative to the Jumbotron at Rockefeller Center, NYC2012 recommends the MSNBC cable network.

Many of the voters remain undecided on their first choices, and even more have yet to select a second city to support should their favorite lose on an early ballot. Those question marks are golden opportunities for bid teams, whose final and most effective means of winning the favor of those voters is through the one-hour presentations. Enticed by the possibility that even one or two votes could make a critical difference in the race, the bid teams will put everything they can into their presentations, which will include films, speeches, a parade of athletes, celebrities, dignitaries, and perhaps even a cultural performance or two. The drama and entertainment could rival the best of Broadway.

If you’re still undecided between a “Law and Order” rerun and whatever NYC2012 can come up with tonight, consider that New York’s promotional film was directed by Steven Spielberg, who apparently took time off from promoting his newly released blockbuster “War of the Worlds” to join this battle of the world capitals.

Not to be left out, Paris will offer a film by French-born director Luc Besson, who is best known for “La Femme Nikita” and “The Fifth Element.”

Typically, bidders try will make emotional appeals at this final point of the campaign, knowing that those positive feelings might linger until the committee members cast their ballots. Clearly, that strategy is more meaningful for bids that present immediately before the vote – in this case, Madrid – but that will just make Paris and New York try even harder.

Later, if you want to experience the actual election event, voting will begin at 5:45 a.m. tomorrow. It may be early, but you’ll be able to see the entire election played out live, round-by-round, on television – and I highly recommend it. If the IOC sticks to tradition, they’ll announce the city that gets dropped off the ballot each round after receiving the fewest votes. To intensify the suspense, they will withhold the vote totals until after the winner is announced – so nobody will know how close the bids actually are, or which bid is leading.

A likely scenario is that by the time of the announcement at 7:30 a.m. in New York time, there will be only two bids on the ballot. If you wait until then to tune in, you will miss much of the drama.

Going into the vote, Paris is still seen as likeliest to leave Singapore with the prize, but for reasons not nearly as credible as those that made Beijing the obvious choice when that city won the 2008 bid.

For one thing, Paris, as the only one of the five finalists that has recent bid experience, has been able to leverage previous plans, the committee feedback on those plans, and the relationships they’ve built with those committee members to come up with an irresistible offer. Indeed, history shows that bids win more often on their second or third try.

Paris’s plan is good, but opponents have an easy time discrediting it on demand. The Olympic stadium will be a retrofitted Stade de France, a venue built for soccer and the 1998 World Cup. In 2012, at age 15, it will lack the glamour and novelty of a brand-new venue, and some experts have said the configuration is not favorable for track-and-field events.

The plan for the athletes’ village, designed to redevelop a derelict rail yard, looks like an impressive community. It is disconnected from many of the venues, however, and may not promote the Olympic atmosphere the Olympic committee is looking for.

Those drawbacks leave the door ajar for London, whose bid has turned around dramatically over the past year. Originally led by an American-born businesswoman, Barbara Cassani, organizers quickly realized they needed a different kind of leadership to be successful and appointed a famed British athlete, Sebastian Coe, to take charge.

Mr. Coe, who understands sports and the Olympics, was able to rebuild the bid quickly to include transportation improvements, a compelling legacy plan, and the means to get the normally unruly British media on board.

Perhaps more important, he has an excellent relationship with a former president of the Olympic committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who may still have influence on a handful of committee members.

Mr. Samaranch, a Spaniard, supports Madrid. Its bid started strong but is fading quickly behind those of London and Paris. Speculation has it that Messrs. Coe and Samaranch have struck a deal that has supporters of each bid moving their votes to the other side should their first choice be eliminated. If it works out, it could provide the margin needed for London to finish ahead of Paris.

A similar scenario has London, Madrid, and New York in a three-way alliance against Paris. While those plans seem plausible, in reality it is very difficult to influence a bloc of IOC voters, especially when they’re casting secret ballots.

NYC2012 will hope to survive until the final ballot, and to use geography to its advantage. Should any of the three Western European bids fall off the ballot first, their supporters may hope to be chosen host of the Summer Games in 2016 instead. To have a chance, they’ll need to leave the European window open for that year, and that means supporting the non-European bid on the final ballot – advantage New York.

After a scathing evaluation report, the best that Moscow can hope for is to play the role of spoiler by gathering enough first-round votes to knock out one of the other cities early. With the votes spread so thin, a favorite could make an early exit.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that betting is brisk for bookmakers taking wagers on the Olympic bids. While the odds from the British bookies usually tend to be skewed toward favorable European results, Centrebet, a firm operating out of Australia, has successfully predicted the winners of the past two Olympic bidding competitions.

Centrebet’s Mark Worwood said last week that thousands of dollars was bet on New York in one evening, enough to shorten its odds from 20-1 to 12-1 and push it into third place, ahead of Madrid.

“Seems like the punters think that Madrid and Moscow are out of the running and are picking New York City as their lively outsider,” he said.

Mr. Worwood said bets on the 2012 race come from around the world and are usually for large sums, sometimes thousands of dollars each.

“Everyone placing big bets has done their research,” he said, ” … betting with their heads.”

Mr. Livingstone is the producer of GamesBids.com.