Princess Norberta of Liechtenstein, Dowager Marchioness of Mariño - usually known as Princess Nora, or plain Nora Liechtenstein - thus becomes, at 72, the first "doyenne", as opposed to "doyen", in the IOC’s near 130-year history.

Though the Olympic Movement has embraced the cause of gender equality with gusto in recent times, it is little more than 40 years since it inducted its first women members.

With Princess Nora’s new status - which, all being well, she should hold for the next eight years - comes the privilege of delivering the closing remarks at IOC Sessions.

This will be a big change for someone who has maintained the lowest of low profiles, at least in public, since joining sport’s most prestigious club in 1984.

Nevertheless, it is a task which, based on my own very limited exchanges with her, I would expect her to take in her stride.

Richard Pound, her extremely high profile Canadian predecessor in the role, told insidethegames that it was "a particular pleasure for me that I will be the last of an unbroken series of male International Olympic Committee doyens when Princess Nora of Liechtenstein becomes our first doyenne."

Pound said that his successor would "bring to the position her profound understanding of the ethical foundations of the Olympic Movement and her sound judgment, all wrapped in a delightful personality."

Princess Nora is not a complete stranger to international media attention.

Before joining the IOC, she was briefly caught up in the deluge of British media speculation regarding the then Prince Charles’s future bride.

"A new girl was tipped yesterday as the future bride of Prince Charles, who will be thirty next week," reported the Daily Mirror on 6 November 1978 under a headshot of Princess Nora and the headline "Royal date".

It told readers that the then 28-year-old "Roman Catholic Princess" worked in London at the International Institute for Environment and Development, had a degree in international politics and spoke French, German, Dutch and English.

"She is both attractive and intellectual," a work colleague confided to the newspaper.

The tips alluded to by the Mirror of course turned out to be wide of the mark, and a decade or so later, Princess Nora married a Spanish nobleman and Olympic bobsledder called Vicente Sartorius y Cabeza de Vaca, the fourth Marquess of Mariño.

The couple had a daughter before the Marquess died in 2002.

The British royal family, including Princess Nora’s now IOC colleague Princess Anne, did go skiing in Liechtenstein, all 10 of whose Olympic medals have come in the sport.

The Nottingham Guardian reported exactly 57 years ago, on 1 January 1966, that the 15-year-old Princess Anne "started to learn skiing on the slopes at nearby Malbun on Thursday", adding that the future Olympic three-day event rider "went through beginner’s paces in cold, cloudy weather".

During the same stay, Princess Nora and other family members were observed accompanying Prince Charles and his father the Duke of Edinburgh on a shopping trip.

While the Duke drove back to the castle "at the wheel of the Liechtenstein royal family’s red limousine", the Liechtenstein children, "Prince Hans Adam, Prince Philip Erasmus and Princess Nora Elisabeth, followed in another car," the newspaper reported.

Later, Prince Charles - now King Charles III - is said to have had an hour’s ski lesson near a hamlet called Steg, where he "practiced parallel turns".