What is clear is that the decision is one that could have been left for the sake of ease and Bach must, therefore, be praised for taking what was a brave but calculated gamble that has set a strong precedence of IOC independence.

Most importantly, it provided evidence of the much lauded “autonomy of sport”, declared in a typically grandiose directive by the United Nations the previous month, particularly because the Russian and Chinese IOC members chose not to raise their hands in protests, and neither did those from any of the other 83 United Nations members that do not recognise the Balkan Republic.

It was convenient that Serbia - the nation from which Kosovo formally declared independence in 2008, nine years after decades of conflict erupted in horrifying circumstances - presently has no IOC members. Criticisms were raised elsewhere; the Athletics Federation of Serbia for example, described last week’s recognition by the International Association of Athletics Federations as an “absurd thing”. But eruptions have been rare and in isolation, and seemingly more a formality to satisfy domestic critiques than concerted criticisms seriously seeking a reversal.

Before a visit to Kosovo over the last two day that, while less than 24 hours in total was high in historical and political symbolism, Bach and his entourage paid a brief but similarly significant visit to Serbia, the first to any part of the Balkans by an IOC President for 31 years.

Rather poignantly, they met only with sporting and Olympic Committee of Serbia (OCS) representatives rather than sporting ones. But in a press conference which concluded the visit, the Kosovo question was raised, and it was admitted that, to a certain extent, the IOC and Serbian authorities will have to “agree to disagree” on this one.

Like a married couple, different groups “cannot agree on everything”, Bach apparently said, a typical example of his ability to deflate a potentially difficult situation with a touch of gentle humour that never seems to fall flat.

It will be interesting to see whether Serbia receives some sort of unofficial compensation for this grudging acceptance: IOC membership for either OCS President Vlade Divac or United World Wrestling boss Nenad Lalovic, perhaps?

For Kosovo the joy and passion has been clear to behold.

“We were encouraged in September to work on a new application file,” Kosovo Olympic Committee President Besim Hasani, who has crusaded passionately and often singlehandedly for the Olympic cause for nigh on two decades, explained to insidethegames.

“This was finished in October and sent to all the members of the [IOC] Executive Board. I was told it would be on the agenda as the final item on the last day, if there was time. But at the end of the first day I received a message from [Turkey’s EB member and World Archery President] Uğur Erdener saying: ‘Congratulations on becoming a provisional member of the IOC.’

“I had to read the message twice for it to sink in. I then received a phone call from [Director of NOC Relations and long-term supporter] Pere Miro, who said he had someone who wanted to speak to me, and that turned out to be Thomas Bach.

“At that moment I was the happiest man in the world.”

After telling first his wife, and then Sports Minister Memli Krasniqi - who is now Minister of Agriculture - the news began to spread, and a celebratory event was soon convened by the Prime Minister with around 2,000 people in attendance. “It was our highest recognition since independence,” added Hasani, struggling to control his emotions even now almost six months on.

This fervour ramped up again when the Executive Board decision was rubber-stamped by the membership at large, and crowds spilled into the streets in Pristina to convey this joy. At this point I even managed to leave my small mark on events. I was with Hasani in Monte Carlo the evening after the decision, trying to help him establish a skype connection so he could conduct a live TV interview from the Fairmont Hotel bar. Once this had been set up I stepped back to leave him to it, only to trip over a cable, rip it from the socket in spectacular fashion, and thus fatally destroy the connection.

“Oh, that was you,” said one Kosovan, trying not to clench his fists too obviously when I relayed this story last week. ”We were all watching that on a big screen in the streets until it went black.”

But in the subsequent months, what impact has recognition truly had? How has it helped the nation in both a sporting and a wider sense, and where is the newest member of the Olympic Family positioned with little more than a year until Rio 2016?

As Bach predicted, the IOC acceptance has opened the floodgate for other International Federations to act similarly. When I first visited the Republic last May, Kosovo boasted 32 international sporting federations, of which 20 were recognised by their respective international body, and of these just 12 were Olympic sports. This included table tennis, which led the way five years before independence was even declared in 2003, while archery, boxing and judo were other trendsetters, led respectively by three longstanding allies to the Kosovan cause in Erdener, his Executive Board colleague C K Wu and SportAccord President Marius Vizer.

In some other cases, there had been no application, or those that had been submitted were rejected or ignored as many bodies waited for others to act first.

After the Association of National Olympic Committees and then the European Olympic Committees granted acceptance, meaning Kosovo could compete at June’s inaugural European Games in Baku, others followed suit. The International Cycling Union and World Taekwondo Federation were among those to have done so by the end of the year. United World Wrestling acted soon after, and then on Kosovan Independence Day the International Swimming Federation did likewise, a major moment as many applications had been submitted and the country has serious aspirations of competing at Olympic-level in the sport.

The IAAF decision this month was even more significant, creating a chorus of Serbian discontent but, more importantly, creating opportunities for multiple young athletes who have rarely had a chance to compete internationally but should now participate at August’s World Championships in Beijing.

Encouraged by the IOC, others, like the International Shooting Sport Federation and the International Volleyball Federation, are expected to act soon, while there are only one or two others that are still yet to make positive gestures.

Football is one major stalling point. The Football Federation of Kosovo has it on a limited basis has not yet been accepted by European body UEFA, and has been by FIFA only on a limited and provisional basis. They are permitted to play FIFA-sanctioned friendly matches, doing so for the first time last year, but only against selected and willing opposition. They remain barred from competitive matches and, until that is changed, top players of Kosovan origin, like Inter Milan’s Xherdan Shaqiri and Manchester United’s Adnan Januzaj, are likely to be tempted more by offers from other countries. Shaquiri and Januzaj indeed ply their international trades for Switzerland and Belgium respectively.

Hasani revealed how Bach has promised to speak to football officials and is hopeful a positive decision will be made in the next year. Despite the difficulties therein - as shown by the clashes and controversy when Kosovo’s ethnic brothers Albania faced Serbia in a European qualifier last year - it does seem a question of when rather than if.

Another ongoing challenge is the International Paralympic Committee. The head of the Kosovan National Paralympic Committee is currently abroad completing her studies, but she is due to return home soon, and a formal application will be launched thereafter.

The sheer fact that one person’s whereabouts could affect a submission of this importance shows how small scale and driven by individuals sport still is in Kosovo. Indeed, for an IOC delegation who visited the lavish United States Olympic Committee headquarters in Colorado Springs earlier this year, the KOC office on the second floor of the House of Sport on a busy road slap-bang in the middle of Pristina must have seemed rather small fry.

Kosovan youngsters should participate at this summer’s European Youth Olympic Festival in Tblisi, while a squad of around 15 athletes is expected to compete at the European Games in the Azerbaijani capital. A quintet of athletes from the sports of judo, archery and karate have already secured places, while it is hoped around 10 more will either do likewise, or be offered universality positions. Boxing, swimming, wrestling and athletics are others where Rio 2016 is a realistic goal.

There is no doubt however who will be leading the Kosovan medal assault in the Brazilian city.

After being given special permission to represent Albania at London 2012, the only Kosovan athlete to compete at the Games, judoka Majlinda Kelmendi turned down several opportunities to switch nationality on a permanent basis, competing in Kosovan colours at the 2013 World Championships, in Rio de Janeiro. There she not only won the gold medal but was named best fighter across all female weight categories, and she defended her title with panache last summer in Chelyabinsk.

She has already qualified for Rio 2016, and barring an injury or severe loss of form, she will enter as the top seed and gold medal favourite. The 23-year-old now has the extra incentive of Bach having personally promised to present the first Kosovan medal should it be won either next year or at Tokyo 2020.

A 10 minute stroll from the House of Sport is the National Sports Centre where hundreds of athletes ranging from primary school to potential Olympic level were training when Bach paid his visit. With typical enthusiasm and desire to speak, laugh, joke and pose with as many people as possible, Bach looked in on training sessions in boxing, weightlifting, karate, table tennis and shooting, and would surely have visited others as well had his minders not belatedly persuaded him he were late enough already.

Those he met included a trio of table tennis players who are about to head to the World Championships in Suzhou, China. The following morning Bach donned shorts, trainers, and a special Kosovo polo shirt to compete in a Fun Run alongside a stampede of local youngsters, along with IOC colleagues who seemed stuck between terror and bemusement as their leader streaked ahead, neck and neck with a pack of 10-year-olds as his renowned competitive instincts got the better of him.

Enthusiasm levels were high everywhere, and time and time again Bach was thanked for making Olympic participation a genuine aspiration for a generation of citizens.

But beneath the hubbub, it is clear that times remain hard in one of European most impoverished corners. Unemployment remains high, signified by the throngs of working age men seemingly spending their days sitting in street-side cafes. The economy remains overwhelmingly agriculturally driven, with little manufacturing sector or incentive for businesses to relocate there. And while Kosovo is become a destination of choice for some seasoned traveller types, tourism is yet to take off in any serious way, and seems unlikely to do so for some time yet.

One onlooker remarked how Pristina reminded him of a city in the 1970s or 1980s and that was about right, with the country remaining several generations behind much of Western Europe in terms of development and infrastructure.

As is so often said, however, sport can be a way to bring about wider improvement. In one moment of poignancy during a somewhat choreographed discussion in front of the cameras at the KOC headquarters, Hasani told Bach how they now want to forget the past and move forward. “You should not forget, but you should learn from the past,” Bach replied, adding: “I am German, I know about these things. Sport can be a way to help improve and rehabilitate the nation."  

At present, less than one per cent of the Kosovan population plays sport regularly, and a lot of those clubs and athletes who did exist have long since stopped due to the conflict, as well as due to a lack of opportunities.

Much is now being done to attempt to improve this situation. This includes working with schools, and introducing coaching and competitions before and between classes in order to identify the best challenge at the earliest of stages. When meeting Bach, Kosovan Prime Minister Isa Mustafa pledged to invest more in sporting infrastructure, integrating it further into the education system while also improving facilities and accessibility.

Support has also been provided already by Olympic Solidarity, with 15 athletes having been provided scholarships to boost in their Rio 2016 participation aims. Funding has also been put towards the training of experts and project managers and possibly for other ventures in the future.

Being a member of the IOC and EOC will create further opportunities, for training and competing overseas and gleaning nous and experience from international observers.

There is thus a long way to go, and Kosovo will certainly remain a relative minnow in the European sporting stakes for a good while yet. Yet as Bach said when addressing a room of Federation representatives attending an official dinner during the visit, momentum is there, and they have to avoid any sort of complacency in pushing forward and ensuring more progress.

The German refused to take the bait when I asked whether Kosovan recognition was the highlight of his Presidency so far, saying only that it was “one very important decision” that arose from a series of “far-reaching” choices made during that December Session in Monte Carlo.

But he did imply that Kosovo was perhaps the best illustration of change.

“It shows the spirit of Agenda 2020, because this recognition was preceded by a very intensive dialogue with many National Olympic Committees, Governments and stakeholders,” he answered.

“Recognition was a clear expression of autonomy of the IOC.

“By having all this together, the unanimous vote, and this expression of autonomy, is the spirit of progress as expressed in Olympic Agenda 2020.”

Most importantly, the decision has given hope and excitement to a population which, independence aside, has had precious little to get excited about over recent decades.