There are few involved in international sport who believe yesterday's decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to set up a special task force to combat drugs came about because of an aching conscience.

The lamentable remark made by the IOC president, Mr Juan Antonio Samaranch, to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo last month on the legitimisation of certain drugs that are not harmful to the health of athletes received a vitriolic response worldwide. Unusually, the 78-yearold president also faced a rebuff from one his trusted lieutenants, Prince Alexandre de Merode, head of the IOC's Medical Commission.

Public squabbles at executive level within the stately IOC are as rare as an athlete admitting "fair cop" after testing positive. Mr Samaranch's remark was clearly seen as injurious to an organisation which has claimed to have spear-headed the global war on drugs in sport.

The president's timing could not have been worse, coming in the wake of revelations from the Tour de France of systematic drug abuse by entire competing teams, managers and doctors. Prince de Merode made it clear he was more of a hawk than a dove on doping, indicating a schism in the tightly-controlled body. So yesterday the IOC moved as a group to clarify the matter. And when the corpulent IOC moves, it is only because it must. It does not take small steps.

The announcement that four special groups will have until next February to come up with a solution to the ever-growing drugs problem is, of course, worthy, although it smacks of an extensive public relations exercise.

The four areas to be covered are: (1) protection of athletes; (2) the political and legal position, the definition of doping, and government co-operation; (3) ethics and prevention; and (4) the financial stakes and the relationship between doping and money. These appear, on the surface, to be aspirational and vague as terms of reference.

The IOC is also a decade late in formulating such a response, coming as it does 10 years after Ben Johnson was ignominiously thrown out of the 1988 Olympic 100 metres final in Seoul for illegal drug abuse - shouting on his way out the door that all top athletes were doing it. It has to be questioned why this task force was not put into action after Seoul and why next January's world symposium did not take place at the beginning of 1989.

But being aspirational, combined with slow reflexes, has always been an IOC trait. The reality is that it has never been able to effectively control its member sports' federations in the areas of either drug-testing procedures or sanctions. It has also baulked at the hard decisions.

The executive board has never been able to throw a sport out of the Olympics when its international federation failed to follow proposals to introduce common anti-doping rules. Bans were discussed before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics because of the failure of tennis, cycling and volleyball to adopt common sanctions and drug-testing programmes, but Olympic leaders sidestepped tough action.

Now some officials, led by Prince de Merode, do not appear so patient, and there have also been suggestions that sports which fail to adopt the plans should lose the television and sponsorship revenue the IOC hands out to the sports from the Games.

But aggravating its own members with the possibility that they might lose their support could mean less revenue for the IOC, which is coming under increasing pressure to weed out the traditional minority sports and replace them with events favoured by television. Therein lies its dilemma. How can the IOC force policy on big Olympic sports such as athletics, gymnastics or volleyball?

The IOC has also discussed plans to improve relations with national governments so that non-sporting authorities, such as customs, which have powers of search and arrest, can take action against athletes or coaches caught bringing banned substances into a country.

This suggestion has some merit. It was the French customs and police who revealed the massive extent of the peloton's drug dependency. But what is the IOC to do? Tip off the police? Has it never occurred to it to cultivate relationships with civil bodies? The International Cycling Federation stood and watched as the Tour fell asunder. It's president remained on holiday.

The IOC's director-general, Francois Carrard, yesterday reiterated his determination to do everything possible to find a solution.

"The committee is totally dedicated to fighting doping, there is no doubt about that," he said. But clearly the most controversial task facing the IOC and sport in general is to redefine what constitutes doping. With Prince de Merode and Mr Samaranch at loggerheads, it appears they have not yet agreed themselves. The prince has promised that there will be no reduction of the banned drug list. Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey supports his stance.

"Let me say that people who want to reduce the list of banned drugs are those who want doping to continue," warned Prince de Merode, squaring up to his president.

The task force's difficulty may well be having to find a compromise between the opposing views of two very powerful individuals. That in itself suggests that the lofty ideals emanating from Lausanne yesterday are already in peril.