The former Olympic fencer’s status as front-runner has however seen him become a target.

Sources close to his rivals say they have held discussions about how to stop the Bach bandwagon in its tracks or at least to ensure that it goes beyond two rounds to give another candidate a fighting chance.

Bach’s closest rival is viewed as Richard Carrion, the Puerto Rican who is in charge of the IOC’s finances, followed by Ng Ser Miang from Singapore and the former pole vault champion Sergei Bubka from Ukraine.

Denis Oswald, the Swiss official who oversaw London’s preparations for the 2012 Games, and C-K Wu, the Taiwanese head of the international boxing federation AIBA, are expected to be eliminated from the vote first.

Bach has been forced to deny allegations in a German TV documentary about his conduct during his days as a fencer in the 1970s. It accused Bach of wearing a wet glove to fool the electronic scoring system, plus other claims about his business activities. A spokesman for Bach said the claims were “nonsense”.

It has led to some negative headlines in the media however and his camp have alleged “dirty tricks” after pictures of these were emailed to a number of IOC members.

The figure in the background of the intense lobbying taking place in Buenos Aires is the man regarded as the IOC’s ’fixer’, Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family.

Al-Sabah is head the new head of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), the umbrella group of 205 national Olympic committees which enjoys huge influence, not least through administering the Olympic Solidarity fund which has 438million dollars (£300million) to distribute between now and 2016 to needy projects.

Al-Sabah has already publicly committed himself to supporting Bach, something that was a breach of the IOC’s very strict rules, and has already chalked up victories in helping Tokyo win the vote for the 2020 Olympics and wrestling to be reinstated.

All the talk is that the Sheikh is on course for a hat-trick with Bach, although there is also a school of thought that there could be a backlash by the those members who are concerned he is wielding too much power.

Certainly it has led to some acrimony – Oswald told Swiss broadcaster RTF: “The members must make their decision but some don’t like the link between Bach and Kuwait.

“I want an independent candidate who is not dependent on certain alliances.”

Bach, too, has influence of his own after more than two decades as an IOC member and he says he will pursue a policy of making the Olympic movement more relevant.

He said: “The world is changing. This is not about standing still, this is about falling behind and if we do that we lose our relevance. We have to change and can change.”

Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, believes that whoever is elected needs to address the possible alienation of young people.

“Young people, particularly under the age of 30, are deeply suspicious of institutions that my generation at worst thought were benign and at best were virtuous,” said Coe.

“I really do think that sport has an opportunity to fill that void. It is about making sure they understand what it is we are doing, what the values of the Olympic movement stand for, what it is going to do in the future.”