Atlanta, Athens Vie for Lead in Olympics Bids : 1996 Games: Toronto in running as IOC plans to reveal decision Tuesday. Melbourne, Manchester and Belgrade trail.

Atlanta and Athens dashed for the finish line today in the race to host the 1996 Olympics, with Toronto hot on their heels in case the leaders stumbled.

International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch was scheduled to open a sealed envelope at 8:47 p.m. local time Tuesday (4:47 a.m. PDT) and deliver the verdict to a packed audience including delegates from the six bidding cities.

Athens, where the modern Games were revived in 1896, is the traditionalists’ choice because of its ancient Olympic heritage. Drawbacks are inadequate communications and transportation systems and antiquated sporting facilities, but Greece has pumped $25 million into promoting its bid.

Atlanta has made perhaps the most professional and impressive presentation, and IOC delegates fondly remember the most recent Olympics staged in the United States--the 1984 Los Angeles Games--as the most profitable ever.

Toronto has also mounted an enthusiastic campaign, while Melbourne is hampered by having to stage the games in what will be winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

The pace of preparations picked up today, with Prime Ministers Bob Hawke of Australia and Constantine Mitsotakis of Greece arriving to boost the bids of their cities, Melbourne and Athens. Actress-politician Melina Mercouri also was pushing the Athens candidacy, and former English soccer star Bobby Charlton was on hand for Manchester.

Belgrade had Vlade Divac of the Lakers, while Atlanta had gold-medal swimmer Janet Evans, a Placentia resident who attends Stanford.

All six candidates are scheduled to make their final presentations to the IOC on Tuesday before the evening vote.

With 86 IOC members scheduled to vote, the magic figure in Tuesday’s secret ballot would be 44. The city with the smallest number of votes will be eliminated after each round of the balloting.

The IOC had other business to tend to today, including announcing a first-of-its kind international coin program to help raise money and celebrate its 100th birthday.

The IOC and national mints of Austria, Australia, Canada, France and Greece announced an agreement to mint 15 gold and silver coins, bearing the Olympic rings, from 1992-96.

Officials said this was the first time such widespread cooperation has been reached in a private enterprise using government mints to coin legal tender, although the purpose is to lure collectors rather than provide loose change.

“These will be legal tender coins--money. They will not be medals,” IOC Vice President Richard Pound said. “But it’s not the kind of coin you carry around in your pocket. They are works of art, struck from precious metals.”

The session also ratified the addition of erythrotropin, used in blood doping, to the list of banned drugs. It has been on the list since executive board action in April.

One of the committee’s oldest members, meanwhile, asked to resign.

West Germany’s Willi Daume, 77, “expressed the desire to leave the IOC,” committee spokeswoman Michele Verdier said. Any such request must be approved by the full committee, and no word on that is expected until Thursday, she said. Approval of resignation requests is not automatic.

The reason for the resignation request was not known.