As an affront against the natural order of things, this is on a par with St Andrews shunning golf, or Wimbledon renouncing tennis.

No ifs, buts or maybes, or muttering about the destructive power of social media - Lausanne, we have a problem.

And if you don't do something about it, well, it is not inconceivable that many current International Olympic Committee (IOC) members will not see the IOC's second-most important product staged in Western Europe, cradle of modern Olympism, again.

So here, in a spirit of constructive engagement, is an idea.

It will not please Olympic purists; it is not even original; but it may help.

Take a leaf out of the book of a body which has little choice but to stage all of its events in Europe and offer the Games to the whole continent.

Instead of trying to locate the whole shooting-match in and around a single reluctant city, why not assert that the time has come for the Winter Games to return to the region that hosted eight of its first ten editions and then invite bids from European municipalities only, but on a sport-by-sport basis?

You could imagine a Games incorporating maybe bobsleigh in St Moritz, cross-country skiing near Lillehammer, track skating in The Netherlands and curling in Scotland.

Infrastructure costs would be minimal and the event would provide a tourist boost for several regions. What's not to like?

By doing this, the IOC would be adapting an innovation pioneered by UEFA, the European football body, whose Euro 2020 international football tournament is to be played across 13 European countries.

With Asia having had a fair crack of the whip and the United States seemingly willing to contemplate jumping into the ring for 2030 - 2026 will be World Cup year in North America, so is not really a runner for the Winter Olympics - this still seems the right moment to pull out all the stops to get the event back to some of the traditional heartlands of winter sports in 2026, even if this requires a radical change of approach.

More importantly, the fine print of the Innsbruck referendum result suggests the idea could fly.

According to my colleague Liam Morgan’s report, while a sobering 67.4 per cent of voters in Innsbruck itself opposed bringing the Games back to the city, the picture was very different elsewhere.

In St. Anton, the proposed location for the majority of Alpine events along with Arlberg, Morgan reported, a huge 85.12 per cent voted in favour.

Similarly, in Hochfilzen, which would have been the venue for biathlon, support again exceeded 80 per cent of voters.

Seefeld, which would have staged Nordic sports if the campaign from the Austrian city had been successful, also gave a convincing thumbs-up, with more than 65 per cent answering Yes.

Based on this, then, you might even find that Innsbruck emerged as an interested bidder for, say, the downhill skiing events.

Most West European winter sports centres are relatively small cities a little off the beaten track in a comparatively affluent and heavily developed continent.

Of course many of their inhabitants will have misgivings about the cost and disruption involved in inviting the whole Olympic circus to their doorstep.

Accommodating a single Olympic/Paralympic sport should seem a much more manageable proposition, more akin to a single-sport World Championship.

Yes, some of the Olympic pageantry would probably be lost, along with the (increasingly quaint and expensive) notion of a single-site Olympic Village.

But many of the challenges thrown up by a multi-city Games would act as a stimulus to creativity.

Think of the possibilities for both Opening Ceremony and Torch Relay.

Perhaps the Closing Ceremony - which, let’s be honest, can be a bit of a damp squib - could be the one occasion when representatives from all competing nations did gather in the same place to witness the passing of the flag to the next host.

Opportunities for both TV producers and marketing honchos should be mouth-watering.

As for the IOC itself, well, rather than preside over an event which, if they are lucky, might provide a brief distraction for sports fans waiting for the Champions League to reach the interesting stage, they can give themselves a shot at rebranding a continent.

Think it over, Herr Bach.

Yes, such a scheme would require you and your colleagues to revisit the Olympic Charter once again, but, you know, desperate times…