updated 2:31 p.m. ET June 4, 2008

ATHENS, Greece - Getting to the final phase was one thing. Now, Chicago has some hard work ahead to overcome weaknesses in its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Chicago was one of four cities selected as bid finalists Thursday, along with Tokyo; Madrid, Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The lineup sets up a high-profile contest featuring major cities from the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Failing to make the International Olympic Committee shortlist were three cities — Doha, Qatar; Prague, Czech Republic, and Baku, Azerbaijan.

The IOC said Doha had the potential to host the Olympics and even rated the Qatari capital tied for third with Chicago in its technical assessment. But the IOC said it turned back Doha because it proposed holding the games in October.

The finalists now advance to a 16-month race that will culminate on Oct. 2, 2009, with a secret ballot by the full IOC at its session in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“It’s a very competitive field,” said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is trying to take the Summer Olympics back to the United States for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Games. “The competition begins now.”

Chicago got a strong dose of reality in the IOC’s report assessing the technical bids, which cited problems with finances and transportation, among other things.

“We really respect the experts who have done the evaluation,” said Chicago bid leader Patrick Ryan, who had not yet read the report. “We’re going to learn from that. We’re going to respect it and we’re not going to alibi to ourselves about it. We’re going to do everything we can to correct all the deficiencies.”

Tokyo scored highest in the technical evaluation, which rated cities in 11 categories — including infrastructure, venues, transportation, security and finances — on a scale of 1 to 10.

The Japanese capital scored an overall average of 8.4, followed by Madrid with 8.2. Chicago was back at 7.0 with Doha, with Rio at 6.5. Chicago didn’t rank first in any of the categories, and lagged in fifth in three.

The early ranking is not crucial, however. When the IOC picked the finalists for the 2012 Olympics in 2004, London was ranked third behind first-place Paris and Madrid in the technical report. London went on to win the games in 2005.

“We’ll evaluate the report, look at the strong points and any weaknesses,” Daley said. “There’s always a wakeup call for everything. If there is any negative, you take it and try to be able to correct it, simple as that.”

The IOC report said Chicago’s wording on government guarantees “does not fully confirm” with requirements; questioned the $27 billion figure listed for highway and transit projects; said sports venue construction budgets “appear low and may warrant review,” and cited a “lack of detail” in plans for transportation between venue clusters.

“We’re very pleased, but at the same time sober knowing we have to improve and have a tremendous amount of work ahead,” U.S. IOC member Bob Ctvrtlik said. “This is the first hurdle. ... We’ll keep improving until we submit our bid book.”

Cities must submit their detailed bid files to the IOC by Feb. 12, 2009. After that, a panel of IOC experts will visit each of the cities, tour the proposed sites and meet with bid and government leaders. The panel will release an evaluation report to the IOC members a month before the October 2009 vote.

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