This was one of the busiest International Olympic Committee (IOC) gatherings I can recall – though it will be nothing on the Session in Buenos Aires in September.
As we return to our various corners of planet earth, here is a summary of what I think we gleaned from these long days beside Lake Geneva.
● Thomas Bach will dominate the remaining weeks of the IOC Presidential campaign.
Like him or not, and even his supporters exude more admiration than warmth when discussing his qualities, the man from Tauberbischofsheim can boast a truly formidable Olympic CV.
A tireless networker, a capable, if far from inspirational, public speaker and now author of a detailed, carefully thought-out manifesto, he looks a certainty to finish either first or second in the six-man race.
But he does not yet look invincible – if support coalesces eventually around one of his five rivals.
This anointed anti-Bach challenger could, in effect, be chosen by the other candidates themselves, if they are prepared to strike deals ahead of the September 10 vote.
Or he could be chosen, more haphazardly, by the electorate, as successive rounds of voting whittle down the field.
The problem, from the anti-Bach perspective, of waiting until the last minute, is that the German looks capable of getting close to a majority relatively early in the poll, leaving him needing to coax votes out of only a few more of his IOC colleagues to push him over the line.
The longer opposition to Bach remains divided, the harder it will be, barring the unexpected, for any one of the other candidates to stop him.
● Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah has underlined his status as a front-rank Olympic powerbroker.
Prior to the 2018 Youth Olympic vote, I was told on several occasions that Sheikh Ahmad had put his weight behind the Buenos Aires bid.
It follows that the South American city's victory in a poll it did not go into as favourite, will be widely interpreted as a strong sign that the President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and chairman of the Olympic Solidarity Commission is now a man of real influence in the Olympic Movement.
This was a very good meeting for him.
● Relations between the IOC and SportAccord President Marius Vizer are at a low ebb.
This is the almost inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the absence of the International Judo Federation (IJF) President's name from a list of nine individuals nominated in Lausanne to become new IOC members – particularly as the list did include the President of the National Olympic Committee of Romania, the country where Vizer was born.
Vizer's SportAccord manifesto included the introduction of a new united World Championships, which could easily be seen as a fledgling rival to the Olympics.
Nonetheless, he would be a powerful enemy to make: this year's World Judo Championships take place in Brazil just ahead of the IOC Session in neighbouring Argentina; Vizer was joined last year at the London 2012 judo competition by Russian President - and Honorary President of the IJF - Vladimir Putin.
● The use of mainstream political leaders to help out bids, though it can be highly effective, is fraught with risk.
This was underlined in Lausanne on at least two occasions.
Medellín's efforts to win the Youth Olympic Games for Colombia were buttressed by the presence in Lausanne of Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian President.
He duly contributed a dignified, Presidential speech to a lively presentation.
Some observers were clearly startled, though, when he alluded, in a subsequent answer, to a peace process in Cuba involving his negotiators and the guerrillas.
I doubt such an off-the-cuff remark would actually have cost Medellín votes, but I also doubt it was something Colombian bid directors planned for.
Tokyo 2020 had added Deputy Prime Minister Tarō Asō, a skeet shooting competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, to its Lausanne team.
An engaging character, all was going well until he mistook the word "lobbying" for the word "doping" in a question from media and launched into a rambling reply.
This was trivial in itself (though not for the poor media handlers and bid advisers); IOC members were in session elsewhere.
But it followed a sub-standard media roundtable the previous day; this is not a good time for a bid to be developing an accident-prone reputation.
● There is still life in the Istanbul 2020 bid
After a dispiriting month, a bad session in Lausanne could just about have sealed the latest Istanbul Olympic bid's fate.
But, led by the irrepressible Hasan Arat, bid chairman, the Turkish team kept its head, raised its game and unveiled a new star in the shape of Ali Babacan, the youthful Deputy Prime Minister for economic and financial affairs.
I still think some immensely stressful times lie ahead – not least if, as seems likely, it is judged necessary for Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to be present in Argentina (see comments on mainstream political leaders above).
But, whatever may be happening in the rest of the world, inside the Olympic bubble there is emphatically no recession.
If this bid is to be tripped up, I still think it is more likely to be on concerns regarding security and/or project management prowess than because IOC members judge its relatively high cost to be out of keeping with the spirit of the times.
● Tokyo must find a way of regaining momentum quickly
For all the Japanese team's efforts, for all the bid's manifest qualities – of which a Mount Fuji-sized $4.5 billion (£3.1 billion/€3.5 billion) cash mountain is far from the least – I still detect scant excitement among IOC members at the prospect of returning to Tokyo after 56 years.
In Switzerland, I got a sense of growing frustration that the message just does not seem to be getting across, which might account for the slightly Keystone Cops flavour now in danger of enveloping the bid.
In practical terms, Tokyo desperately needs a convincing anchor speaker to bring to its final presentation precisely the passionate gravitas that Seb Coe summoned up eight years ago for London 2012.
In this context, I wonder whether August 11, 2012 may come to be seen as a key date in the campaign.
This was the day Koji Murofushi, a gold medal-winning hammer thrower was disqualified from the IOC Athletes' Commission election.
Murofushi, a commanding stage presence, with good English and a relaxed yet dignified demeanour, could potentially have delivered that almost mystical Olympic edge that Coe gave to London.
Though the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) concluded eventually that Murofushi's reputation and integrity as a sportsman remained completely untarnished, it is hard to see how Tokyo 2020 can make much use of him now.
In any event, he is not an IOC member – a fact underlined when Danka Barteková and James Tomkins, two of the four winners in that controversial election, played a small part in formalities for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games vote.
● Madrid is on a roll
Buoyed by the boost that fate, in the shape of the recent protests in Brazil and Istanbul, has handed them, the Spanish bid took full advantage in Lausanne, serving up crisp, no-nonsense sound bites for the media and a royal superstar - Felipe, Prince of Asturias - for the IOC.
Just about the only thing that could have gone better was the Thursday morning event in the majestic Palace hotel, when the three 2020 rivals exhibited their bids for a few hours in adjacent rooms named after prominent local personages/institutions.
The Spanish capital was allotted the Salon Sir Peter Ustinov for this task, while the Salon Olympique - clearly the most apt title - went to Istanbul.
Prince Felipe and his colleagues have not won yet, though: their "realistic bid for realistic times" will come under more scrutiny now - and I am still not convinced that the low-cost option will hold quite as much appeal for IOC members in their comforting cocoon of sponsorship and broadcasting dollars as some think.
● Mike Lee has still got it.
Buenos Aires's win added to the British bid adviser's lengthening list of Olympic victories.
His company Vero's input was just one of a list of ingredients contributing to the Argentinean city's recipe for success.
And this was less high profile a campaign than some of the Summer/Winter Olympic, and for that matter World Cup, bids Lee has been involved in.
I think, nonetheless, that I detected his influence at work at certain key junctures, not least when the Argentine Olympic Committee (COA) was quick to distance itself from a controversial advert featuring the Falkland Islands in the run-up to London 2012.
"It was the right bid for the city at this time," Lee told me after the vote, heaping praise on all elements of the bid and those responsible.
But the bear hug between him and COA President and IOC member Gerardo Werthein after the result was announced spoke volumes about how much his contribution was valued.
● These are strange days for IOC insiders.
They know, clearly, that change is on the horizon, but cannot be sure what form it will take.
This made for an odd atmosphere in Lausanne, the Olympic capital.
Whether this is direct cause and effect is unclear, but the bureaucrats seem to have fallen back on an instinct for privacy that would not look out of place in the British civil service.
Not only the 2020 presentations, but also the speeches of the six men vying to become the next global figurehead of the Olympic Movement were behind closed doors, for reasons that not even IOC members seemed able to articulate.
This would be fine in most private clubs, but the IOC shows every sign of revelling in its unprecedented international prominence.
As some Presidential candidates at least appear to appreciate, this stature imposes what should amount to an obligation on the IOC to foster maximum transparency as it goes about its business.
The ninth IOC President will need to look and sound convincing on camera.
I am baffled as to what was to be gained by keeping the cameras at bay as the Presidential contenders made their first formal pitch to IOC colleagues.
● Recession, what recession?
We have heard plenty in recent weeks on how Big Sport needs to come to terms with the new realities; I may have been responsible for some of the preaching along these lines myself.
But, actually, whenever you enter the cushioned corridors and geranium-fringed walkways inhabited by the real movers and shakers, the trials and tribulations of everyday life start to appear impossibly remote.
While much of the rest of the world suffers, it is worth remembering that Olympicland will have its activities funded, in large part, over the next three years by the fruits of commercial contracts inked before the boom turned sour.
Has the IOC been shaken into curbing its recent appetite for grandiose projects?
I am less persuaded of this than I was a week ago.
● A salutary reminder
Seeing the pain and disappointment in the eyes of the Glasgow 2018 Youth Olympic bid team after their elimination served as a jolting reminder of the heavy emotional toll this unpitying industry can take.
They had not put a foot wrong that I could see, but in the Olympic world, as elsewhere, you cannot push water uphill.
This was just not their time. Nothing they might have done would have changed that. End of story.
The good thing is that, not only will they have lifted their city's stock of goodwill for next time, whenever next time is, but they were able to fall back on the good offices of British IOC vice-president Sir Craig Reedie and wife Rosemary to ensure that they spent a memorable day in the Olympic citadel even so.
It was typical of the Reedies that they should set aside their own disappointment to do this.
Such gestures, from people whom you would not blame for adopting a much more high-handed attitude, help you remember that, when all is said and done, we are better off with the Olympic Movement than without it.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012.
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