Author Coelho may have tipped the scales in Rio's favour

 FORGET the Blair effect for London and the Obama effect for Chicago, award-winning author Paulo Coelho has come up with what could be a genius ploy to secure Rio the 2016 Summer Olympics.

BOOK WORM: Author Paulo Coelho may have played masterstroke for Rio 2016

Coelho, by a distance Brazil's most successful author having penned best-sellers The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist, has spent Thursday in Copenhagen swooning IOC members' wives with his dulcet tones and his gift of the gab (or whatever the Brazilian equivalent is).

The Alchemist - an allegorical novel about a young shepherd in pursuit of his Personal Legend - has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 67 languages.

It has been billed as a modern classic and without donning the sexist cap (I have read it myself) it tends to be more commonly found on the bookshelves of the fairer sex.

So in taking a group of IOC members' wives to lunch, Coelho could have pulled off a masterstroke that may prove pivotal in a vote that is currently, according to IOC President Jacques Rogge, too close to call.

But is this taking what is fast becoming a celebrity battleground a step too far. The King of Spain is in Copenhagen but it is Queen of television Oprah Winfrey who is turning more heads.

Indeed all four heads of state will be in Copenhagen for the IOC's decision on Friday and it is Obama and co that have got chins wagging, not whose bid concurs with the Olympic Movement most appropriately.

And it has not gone down well with some senior IOC members.

"You've got the leader of the free world flying halfway round the world to show up to make sure everybody understands he is supporting his country," said Canadian representative Dick Pound.

A best-selling author influencing the outcome is another matter altogether and could be a sign of things to come. Whether he does or not will possibly depend on who wears the trousers in the IOC members' households.