"This is a sign of the great passion and great desire of Russia to become a partner for the Olympic movement," Sochi bid chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said of Putin's presence.

Sochi is up against Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Salzburg, Austria, in Wednesday's vote by more than 100 International Olympic Committee members meeting in Guatemala.

Putin came direct from talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine.

While he is scheduled to visit Guatemala's President Oscar Berger, Putin's main goal is to win the Winter Olympic Games for Sochi, Russia's Black Sea resort.

While the 2014 Winter Games race has not captured global interest at nearly the levels of the 2012 competition — in which London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris were finalists — it has commanded top government priority in the countries involved.

Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer arrived in Guatemala on Saturday, and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun arrived yesterday.

"I think it is very essential," Russian IOC member Vitaly Smirnov said of the show of support from the national leaders.

Blair made it so. IOC members cited his 11th-hour campaigning as the winning edge in London's narrow victory against Paris (London won by four votes) for the 2012 Olympics.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said last week he is expecting another close vote Wednesday because "the three candidates are of the same high quality."

The momentum of early leader Salzburg, which is selling the charm of a Winter Olympics in a traditional Alpine setting, has waned in recent months. The bid could suffer effects from the 2006 Olympic blood doping case that in May prompted the IOC to ban six Austrian athletes for life and impose a $1 million penalty on the Austrian Olympic Committee.

"I have been through many electoral campaigns," Gusenbauer said yesterday. "Before the last vote is cast, the race is not over."

Austria has hosted Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, in 1964 and 1976, and the Austrians are calling their 2014 proposal a "no-risk" bid, with eight of 11 venues built and much of the infrastructure in place.

Sochi would have to build all its venues, something the Russian government has committed $12 billion to do, irrespective of Wednesday's result. Russia, long a Winter Olympics power in the medal counts, never has hosted a Winter Games.

Smirnov contended that a Sochi Olympics would make the Black Sea coastal town a "world-class destination" and give Russia greater capability to host future world championships in winter sports.

Pyeongchang, which finished just three votes behind Vancouver in the IOC election for the 2010 Winter Olympics, would make South Korea the first Asian country outside of Japan to host the Winter Games.

South Korean officials are appealing to IOC members' sense of the greater good, saying an Olympics in Pyeongchang could help promote peace between South Korea and North Korea.

"Sport has always been beyond politics, and sport can play a role when politics cannot," said Kim Jin-sun, governor of Gangwon Province, where Pyeongchang is and the only province divided by the separation of the Korean peninsula.