Key members of the International Olympic Committee, in a rare appearance, are convening in Denver this week for the SportAccord convention and IOC executive board meetings, with all sorts of political intrigue whirling in the background.

Hottest topic: Some IOC members are insisting once again that the revenue sharing plan that gives the U.S. Olympic Committee a handsome share of TV-contract and sponsorship money garnered by the IOC is unfair to other nations. They make a strong case. The Americanos have always argued, so far successfully, that the lion's share of that sponsorship money comes from American companies.

But that ratio has changed of late, and the global recession has left less money to go around.

It's a complicated dispute, but the upshot is that in the hypersensitive political environment preceding any Olympic host-city selection process, Chicago organizers are rightfully worried that it could poison the well for them. The organizing committee, in fact, is attempting to distance itself from that problem altogether, Reuters reports today.

Good luck with that.

Meantime, the USOC is left to navigate these treacherous waters with another new CEO, former Stanford hoops player Stephanie Streeter, who recently colluded with other board members to pull a palace coup to oust former CEO Jim Scherr.

Scherr might not have been the perfect leader, but he had a great track record at the Olympics, and the trust and support of many of the U.S. National Governing Bodies of various sports. And Streeter is so enthusiastic about her new job, she hasn't even decided if she should be bothered to move to Colorado Springs to run the Colorado Springs-based organization.

Our take: This is going to get extremely dicey, and the USOC has left itself incredibly vulnerable with its ill-timed boss-dumping.

At least Scherr knew the players at the international level -- and they knew him.

This is one of the risks, and inherent frustrations, with putting the cash and considerable effort into a serious Olympic bid: Something not of your own making can come along at the 11th hour and scuttle the entire thing.

Chicago organizers, meanwhile, are attempting to counteract the ill winds by suggesting once more that they will trot out their ace in the hole, President Barack Obama, to make a personal appearance when IOC delegates gather to vote for the 2016 host city on Oct. 2. No confirmation on that yet from the Prez.

Meanwhile: Sebastian Coe, head of the London 2012 Organizing Committee, describes to the Associated Press some of the woes of organizing those Games in the midst of the worst economy in modern history.

Stay tuned.