But International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach and his “cardinals of sport”, to use their opponent, SportAccord boss, Marius Vizer’s resonant analogy, have scored at best a waza-ari and not a contest-ending ippon.

Even if the aggressive Vizer is forced to back down after his bruising Monday (April 20) morning assault that tore sleepy delegates away from their Blackberries, even if he were obliged to step down, it is already clear that the victory would, in all probability, not be cost-free for the sporting time-lords of Lausanne.

For all that those who witnessed it were impressed by the lawyerly assurance of Bach’s ad-libbed response, what really swung day one of this gripping trial of strength in the IOC’s favour was the fast-growing list of signatures of International Sports Federation (IF) leaders appended to a swiftly-drafted statement of support for Bach and his Agenda 2020 reform programme.

These IF leaders - particularly those such as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) who were fastest out of the traps - will now be able to claim that they have done Bach a good turn.

In the complex game of favour-trading that constitutes international sports politics, this is money in the bank.

I would not be in the least surprised if IFs, in time, endeavoured to call in the favour and in the process exposed the weakness at Agenda 2020’s core: that agreement was achieved on a series of principles without addressing the tensions that detailed implementation is likely to throw up.

To pluck out an imaginary example: if I were a leading 50 kimometres walker or triple jumper, I would today be a good deal less uneasy about the prospect of my event being kicked off the Olympic programme to make way for something more youth-friendly or telegenic.

Why? Because if the prospect is raised, the IAAF might with some justification throw up its hands in horror and ask if that is any way to treat the ally which sped to the barricades on the IOC’s behalf with most alacrity.

As yesterday's statement by the Association of the International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) made crystal clear, it is more the “occasion and manner in which the opinions of the SportAccord President were expressed” that has gone down badly than the actual substance of those opinions.

The IOC would do well to bear that in mind.

Win or lose, it can also be said with some confidence that Vizer’s fusillade has ended the extended honeymoon in which Bach has basked, at least within the Movement, since his arrival at the tiller in September 2013.

This is probably no bad thing: the smoothness with which he and his team have accomplished the bulk of their goals over this 19-month span was becoming positively surreal, never more so than in the Pyongyang-esque fervour with which IOC members voted through Agenda 2020, albeit with a few serious questions posed, in an orgy of unanimity.

After all, as the highly unsatisfactory contest for the right to stage the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics has spelt out in big, fat capital letters, the leaders of the global sports movement face major problems that must be addressed by more than just better PR.

There are even those in Sochi who think that we may be entering a period when the movement has to battle for its very survival.

“War minus the shooting” was how George Orwell famously defined “serious sport”.

Those who witnessed the ferocity of Vizer’s assault could be forgiven for wondering if the great essayist was, for once, wide of the mark.

And yet, if this week’s high drama obliges sports leaders to ask hard questions of themselves and take a serious look at the issues which really confront them, much good may yet come of it.