The fascinating thing about the race between Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellín for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games is that not many of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members who will vote on where the event will be staged have given the contest much thought.

That is no criticism of the busy IOC members - simply a reflection of the fact that there are so many major bid races in the Olympic Movement this year which take prominence over the 2018 Youth Olympics.

They are race to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics(between Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo, the contest to appear at the 2020 Olympics between baseball/softball, squash and wrestling and, of course, the most important one to the IOC members, the six-way battle to succeed Jacques Rogge as IOC President, between Thomas Bach, Ng Ser Miang, C K Wu, Richard Carrión, Denis Oswald and Sergey Bubka,

All three of those major decisions will be decided at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires this September in a gathering that will define the direction the Olympic Movement takes over the next decade.

But the decision on where the 2018 Youth Olympics will be held will take place two months earlier – on July 4 at the IOC Extraordinary Session in Lausanne.

It may actually be only during the key presentations staged just before the vote that the IOC members start seriously thinking about whether they want the event to go to Argentina, Britain or Colombia.

But those members with more than a passing interest in the race will have noted the report on the three cities published last week by the IOC Evaluation Commission for the event.

The Commission, chaired by Germany's IOC Executive Board member Claudia Bokel, released a report showing that both Glasgow and Medellín presented "minimal risk to the IOC" if they were are selected to stage the competition.

Doubts, though, were raised over Buenos Aires – specifically over the Argentinian capital's funding and related guarantees underpinning the bid.

The IOC claimed that they could not accept any minimum payment clause to the National Olympic Committee, as included in Buenos Aires' marketing agreement - a minimum payment guarantee of $900,000 (£588,000/€688,000).

The report forced immediate action from Buenos Aires, who quickly responded by saying they have now all financial guarantees and commitments in place, including the Government of the City of Buenos Aires taking full responsibility to cover any potential financial shortfalls.

But the embarrassing setback now leaves Buenos Aires behind their rivals at this late crucial stage, particularly given that there were also doubts expressed about their proposed dates of September 11 to 23, which is the start of their spring when the temperature is only 12 degrees on average.

Glasgow will be pleased with their report however. The one minor problem was concerns over its proposed sponsorship target of $41 million (£27 million/€31 million), 13 per cent of the total budget.

The Evaluation Commission called the target "optimistic" - and, even though the Scottish Government and the City Council have promised to meet any shortfall in the budget, "the split of responsibilities has not been clearly identified".

The minor criticism will be an annoyance rather than a problem for the Scottish city.

But in the third camp, Medellín will be delighted as the publication of the report suggests that the original dark-horse for the 2018 Youth Olympics could perhaps now be considered the favourites.

The chief play in their bid strategy is their remarkable story.