It brought the curtain down on a year when the Executive Board (EB) met no fewer than 18 times. It also marked the first century of its existence.

Established in 1921, and originally known as the "Executive Commission", the EB is effectively the "cabinet" of the Olympic Movement. It meets "when convened by the President on the latter's initiative or at the request of the majority of its members," and has general overall responsibility for the administration of the IOC.

The new Olympic House in Lausanne has a dedicated room for EB meetings, complete with a sculpture of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, but this year most have been conducted on a secure virtual digital forum that would surely have astonished him.

He had been IOC President since 1896. In the early years he had sought "elbow room" to develop what he called "Olympism."

During the First World War, he had briefly given up the leadership. Baron Godefroy de Blonay of Switzerland became Interim President, but Coubertin assumed the reins again when peace returned.

"In these troubled times after the war, and as I had definitely decided to retire, there was also the wish on my part to arrange matters for the near future so that the ensuing stability might help my successor, whoever he was, in the first days of his tenure of office," he wrote.

In June 1921 at the IOC Session in Lausanne, Coubertin proposed the formation of a "Commission Executive" to be led by De Blonay and include two future IOC Presidents Count Henri Baillet-Latour of Belgium and Sigfrid Edstrom of Sweden, then head of World Athletics.

The new body had its first meeting at the Paris offices of the French National Olympic Committee at 103 Faubourg St Honore.

The minutes describe it as a "Commission Administrative."

Baillet-Latour was joined by Edstrom, Albert Glandaz of France and the Reverend Courcy Laffan from Britain, who happened to be in Paris at the time.

The minutes were recorded in French, then as now, the official language of the movement. There was a brief explanation of the group’s aims before Edstrom reported on the preliminary discussions about the next Congress, scheduled for 1925.

Baillet-Latour led a group working on Olympic regulations. Even then, the programme for the Olympics was a burning issue.

It was to be the only meeting in 1921, and in early years meetings were much less frequent than they were to become in 2020.

Yet the official IOC history published in 1994 asserts that the EB "listened, noted, discussed, proposed and made policy. It performed its role to the full."

Austria and Germany had been excluded after the First World War as defeated powers and the Board was the first point of contact in arranging the admission of new IOC members from those countries.

They also drew up a discussion document on "amateurism" and the definition of who might be eligible to take part in the Games. This was to be a major topic of discussion and dispute at the 1925 Congress and in subsequent years.

In 1936, they laid the ground for the unprecedented expulsion of a member. American Lee Jahncke, a high ranking US Navy officer, had supported calls to boycott the Berlin Olympics.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Board felt he had "betrayed the committee." In Berlin Jahncke was duly ejected from the IOC.

Most things ground to a halt during the Second World War but in the weeks after the fighting ended, Edstrom and America’s Avery Brundage flew to London where they were welcomed by Lord Aberdare for the first meeting in six years.

They decided the host cities for 1948 would be "chosen by a vote by correspondence" but recommended St Moritz for the Winter Games and London for the summer.

They also resolved to contact the National Olympic Committees "suggesting that they resume their activities, stimulate public interest in the Olympic Movement and stress the principles of true amateurism."

There were some vacancies in the IOC and each Board member was "charged with the duty to find in various countries, new men with active interests in sport and suitable qualities as members of the IOC."

There was also a need to jettison some, like the Italian General Giorgio Vaccaro who had unsavoury pre-war associations.

Vaccaro had been part of Mussolini’s regime in Italy but had shown a disinclination to resign. The Board discussed the "Vaccaro Affair" before presenting it to the membership.

At the same time, they discussed the readmission of Japan and Germany, excluded from the 1948 Games.

In the years to come and especially after Brundage became IOC President in 1952, the EB dealt with many similar political "hot potatoes."

Brundage’s rather autocratic style, left National Olympic Committees, International Federations and even some IOC members feeling short changed.

"The directives of the Executive Board will be made known as and when necessary during the course of discussions," he once told members.

Even he admitted that some problems needed closer study.

He set up an IOC Commission led by Lord Killanin to examine sport in South Africa in the apartheid era. Although it didn’t happen immediately, South Africa were expelled from the Olympic Movement in 1970 and did not return until the 1990s.

In 1972 came a different crisis which threatened the Games.

Terrorists from the "Black September" organisation infiltrated the Munich Olympic Village, shot members of the Israeli team and took others as hostages. After a tense day, they had been taken to Furstenfelbrück Airbase.

There had been a firefight and it was announced that the hostages had been rescued. The report turned out to be tragically inaccurate.

When the EB reconvened at nine o’clock the following morning, the first item listed was "Palestinian acts of Terror."

Brundage told his colleagues that "the best course to take was to declare this a day of mourning and to proceed with the programme with 24 hours' delay."

At the memorial service, he angered many by alluding to the exclusion of the Rhodesian team in the preceding week as "political blackmail" but at the EB meeting he insisted "his remarks would be helpful to the African sports leaders who were fighting against political intrusion."

The agenda also included discussion about the US basketball team which refused to accept their silver medals after the controversial end to the final against the Soviets.

Pakistani hockey players were banned for their behaviour on the podium after losing to host nation Germany.

The casual behaviour of American sprinters Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett was interpreted as a Black Power protest, similar to that which had occurred in 1968.

Brundage branded this "a disgrace to sport, to the Olympic Movement and to the United States."

The Board decided that Matthews and Collett were to be "eliminated from taking part in any future Olympic competitions" and the United States Olympic Committee was "cautioned about future competitors."

By this time the IOC was also considering measures against doping, and the more delicate problem of gender verification, then known as a "sex test."

At the time the EB itself was exclusively male, because there were no female IOC members until 1981.

In 1990 the late Flor Isava Fonseca of Venezuela was the first woman elected to the EB. She had been one of the first women to become an IOC member almost a decade before and said it celebrated her "golden wedding with sport."

In 1996, American Anita de Frantz became the first female vice-president.

In the wake of the Salt Lake City scandal, the IOC 2000 Commission upgraded members of the Athletes Commission to full IOC membership. Amongst their recommendations was that the Athletes’ Commission "must be represented on the IOC Executive Board."

Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka was the first. He was succeeded in 2008 by Namibian sprinter Frankie Fredericks and since then the EB athlete representatives have all been women. 

German fencer Claudia Bokel was followed by American ice hockey player Angela Ruggiero and Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry. Four of the 15 current members are women.

By the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the EB ushered in women’s ski jumping for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi as one of six new events. They also called for clear rules for athletes with hyperandrogenism.

Any action against National Olympic Committees who infringe the Olympic Charter generally originates with the EB.

In 2018 they drew up the conditions under which "Olympic Athletes from Russia" would be permitted to compete at Pyeongchang.

Over the next few months, their decision to provisionally suspend some Belarusian officials seems certain to be prominent on the agenda.

They also confirmed there would be gender equity at Paris 2024.

Although IOC Sessions are streamed live, the EB meetings continue to be held "in camera" and the full minutes of their deliberations are embargoed for 30 years.