For the first time in a long, long time, the Olympic Games were last week the subject of positive headlines that had nothing to do with drug test results after the first pan-Korean talks in two years prompted the announcement that North Korea would participate at Pyeongchang 2018.

Even more remarkably, it is now possible that athletes from the North and South could feature together as part of a joint women's ice hockey team at the Games.

"It should be of no surprise that it is sport, specifically the Olympics, which has underpinned the first bit of dialogue between the two neighbouring states in over two years," declared CNN. 

FranceInfo were even more impressed, telling us how "the Olympics are stronger than any diplomatic process".

Jim Bell, President of Production and Programming at NBC Olympics, also claimed the Olympics are "perhaps more vital now than ever" in a USA Today opinion piece in which he also took a little dig at "cynical detractors" who can "often outshout thoughtful critics".

It must be difficult for NBC to work out how to cover the scandals surrounding the event they pay so much to broadcast, but they were certainly quick to make their point here.

Others have been similarly eulogistic and lapped-up the often-used cliché about the Olympics being an "anchor of stability" in our troubled times.

Many others have, though, quite rightly pointed-out that the Olympics have more been a vehicle to accelerate something that happened purely due to diplomatic pragmatism.

We wrote an article in mid-December quoting the Korea Institute for National Unification's prediction that the North will play ball over the Olympics as part of an attempt to "manage" the security situation in the first-half of this year. Slightly worryingly, they suggested that Pyongyang plan to recommence their next round of nuclear testing from May, so it would suit them to have some friendly overtures and, perhaps, a reduction of sanctions before then.

It is also likely that the wily Kim is hoping to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States Administration led by Donald Trump, now trying to take credit for the latest developments despite having spent the past year aggressively ramping up the rhetoric. It could also upset the equilibrium within South Korea, where a split may emerge between those who sympathise with the North Korean regime and those who want to continue playing hard-ball.

Motivations are also obvious from a South Korean perspective as they seek to ensure the success of the Olympics and prove that they are a diplomatic player on the world stage.

The IOC have, in many ways, benefited from an extraordinary amount of luck that everything has come together at the right time, but this is not to say they do not deserve credit.

To be fair to the IOC, they avoided the jubilant responses made by some after the announcement, saying only that they "warmly welcome" proposals which "mark a great step forward in the Olympic spirit".

The IOC have played a very clever game behind the scenes over the last year. Like with the Zika virus scaremongering before Rio 2016, they refused to admit fears over North Korea upsetting Pyeongchang 2018, and did their usual job of clamping down on the messaging from other Olympic stakeholders to ensure everyone sang from the same hymn-sheet.

They also constantly spoke about how they would welcome North Korean participation even after they missed the deadline for athlete entries.

At the same time, Bach was being his usual wily self behind the scenes, swiftly informing Moon Jae-in even before he assumed office as South Korean President in May that the Olympics presented a great platform for a North Korean breakthrough.

They have constantly prodded and probed over the last year and, while allowing South Korea to take all the credit for its northern overtures, they are certainly wielding some influence. I would guess the possible pan-Korean ice hockey team, which was exclusively reported about by insidethegames on Wednesday (January 10) before a South Korean official confirmed it, was an idea originally drawn-up in Lausanne, perhaps in partnership with ice hockey authorities desperate to revive an event already tainted by the absence of National Hockey League players?

It would be a huge coup for the IOC brand if this does materialise.

North and South Korea have never participated side by side on the Olympic sporting stage, unless you count the Berlin Games in 1936 when all Korean athletes competed as part of the Japanese team.

The two Koreas played as a single team in 1991 at the World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan and the World Youth Football Championship in Lisbon, Portugal.

They also marched together under the unification flag at the Opening Ceremonies of three Olympic Games, but not since Turin in 2006.

It seems difficult to envisage this as anything more than a brief and convenient pause in hostilities rather than a politics-through-sport turning point on the scale of the "Ping Pong Diplomacy" in the 1970s wherein exchanges between US and Chinese table tennis players paved the way towards the thawing of Sino-US relations.

It is not easy to forget that the last “Olympic Truce” during a Winter Games, in Sochi, contained the slight hiccup of the host nation invading a neighbouring country midway through.

But the Olympics can indeed be a bridge for a divided world, on occasions, just as it can act as a boiling point for tensions and problems at other times.

There are still many points to iron-out at a meeting scheduled to be held between the North and South Koreans with the IOC in Lausanne on Saturday (January 20).

Seoul will have to be careful not to violate international sanctions on the North Korean regime. The Financial Times have speculated that if they are provided products by Nike or any other American company, for instance, then this would be a violation. Questions over accommodation, security and the journey made by the North Korean delegation to and from the host nation must also be answered, although solutions will undoubtedly be found.

This has all provided yet another illustration that the IOC under Bach are extremely good at playing politics with world leaders. There are still those mutterings, of course, that the German sees the IOC Presidency as an audition for his ultimate objective of being United Nations Secretary General.

He is still yet to prove similarly comfortable at satisfying the general public, particularly in the European markets which have provided the IOC with far less success than in places like South Korea over recent years.

But I think that, for the time being, Bach and the IOC will be quietly satisfied that, after the blowing-up of all sorts of scandals under his watch, they have finally benefited from some good fortune.