The International Olympic Committee concluded its week long congress in Moscow yesterday by electing a new leader to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the IOC. The elevation of Belgian surgeon, Mr Jacques Rogge, to the most powerful post in world sport may, in time, prove as important as last Friday's vote to give the 2008 Olympics to Beijing.
His emphatic victory underlined the political and geographical horse-trading that is never far from Olympic politics.
Mr Rogge may have been the front-runner for the post but having the right credentials has never been a guarantee of success in the murky world of Olympic politics. His main opponent, South Korean Mr Kim Un-Yong, who was almost expelled from the IOC in 1999 for trying to secure personal favours, had closed the gap on Mr Rogge with the tempting suggestion for IOC members that they should be made Olympic ambassadors and possibly receive payments for their work. For a body not renowned for its adherence to the highest ethical standards, it was a moment of truth.
Happily, the IOC took the right course and elected a man who has managed to remain above the many scandals that have bedevilled the committee in the last decade. However, the challenge facing Mr Rogge is now to move away from the autocratic style of Mr Samaranch and convince a sceptical sporting world that the issues of IOC corruption and doping in sport will be met with a vigour that has been lacking to date.
In his 21 years at the helm of the IOC, Mr Samaranch led the Olympic movement through enormous changes for the better, but his inability to tackle IOC sleaze and the scourge of drugs in sport may well be his legacy - and Mr Rogge's opportunity. The commercial success of any Olympics is now virtually guaranteed so Mr Rogge can afford to mark out his eight-year term with an outright assault on these vital issues.
As the IOC folded its tent and left Moscow yesterday, it had reason to believe that the two momentous decisions it made in the last four days will satisfy most of its critics and point the five ring circus towards a less turbulent future.