Same old story. The World Conference on Doping, which might have represented a new beginning for sport, unfolded depressingly as a case of business as usual.

There were ringing words, the usual Olympian grandiloquence, even a document which metamorphosed from being Swiss fudge to the Lausanne Declaration, a resolution passed not by vote but by a thin round of applause.

It was a bad week for sport, and under the thin patina of forced unity lay the reality of various delegations coming to Lausanne to defend their turf. In doing so they weakened sport's integrity.

The key outcomes from yesterday's final session were the agreement to form an independent world anti-doping agency and the decision that there would be no uniform sanction for drug cheats. What you took from that depended on who you listened to.

"I believe sincerely that this anti-doping conference has been a great victory for clean sport," said Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The great victory was being expressed elsewhere as the great anomaly. Next month a runner and a cyclist might test positive for precisely the same substance on precisely the same day, but the cyclist could be confident of competing in the Sydney Olympics and the runner could not.

Critically, the conference bowed to the wishes of cycling, soccer and tennis and conceded the existence of exceptional circumstances whereby first time drug offences might merit a smaller sentence.

It came down to politics and spin. As each session for the past three days would end, 650 delegates would pour out and chase down the 450 journalists to batter them with their spin and their rationale on the morning's proceedings. Self-interest has never had so many apologists.

Most depressing for the observer, perhaps, was the concrete hardening of old suspicions. Those who have wondered if the positive tests which have gone missing at each Olympic celebration since 1984 were made vanish out of some deferential fear of the wrath of sponsors were alarmed to see the IOC propose having sponsors and kit manufacturers represented on an independent drug agency. Just as disquieting was the IOC's determination to be the controlling influence in that agency.

Even yesterday, after EU sports ministers and Barry McCaffrey from the White House had made it abundantly clear that Samaranch would be unacceptable as the head of such an agency, the IOC president was refusing to publicly relinquish his interest in the post.

"Can you say you don't want this position," he was asked.

"I am not saying that," he replied.

Any wonder the departing embraces were cold and sour. Mark Sisson, director of the anti-doping commission for triathlon, emerged from yesterday morning's final session and, initially, awarded the conference five out of 10. But then he considered what has become known as the "exception rule" and reduced his mark to three out of 10.

"The big winners here are the lawyers of the world," he said, reflecting the frustrations of the many delegates who had wished to see the uniform, two-year ban introduced for first time drug cheats. The watering down at the behest of those sports paralysed by fear of litigation was seen by many as the key failure of the week.

"Based on specific, exceptional circumstances, to be evaluated in the first instance by the competent international federations, there may be provision for a possible modification of the two-year sanction," the eventual draft declaration read. Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, said he was satisfied with the compromise. "The option gives us the what we wanted - it gives the possibility of flexibility to individual sports," he said. "We will have the chance to evaluate each infraction on its merits."

Soccer, cycling and tennis are the sports most in fear of litigation from well-paid stars if long-term bans are overturned. The decision to let federations decide on exceptions to the two-year ban disturbed many.

"We will never never use the exception rule," said the main spokesman for athletics, Primo Nebiolo, the president of the IAAF.

"This is a lost opportunity," said John Mendoza of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, "and a very disappointing preliminary outcome from the conference."

There had been calls for those sports which were unwilling to enforce the two-year ban to be expelled from the Olympics, but in the end the IOC closed ranks around its own and ushered in an era of what many delegates regard as inadequate policing. Policy on sanctions has been piecemeal up until now, but the raison d'etre of this week's conference was to move forward in harmony. It was doping crises in cycling and Italian soccer which sparked calls for the conference in the first place.

If sport was weakened by the manifest failure of the week's activity, so too was Juan Antonio Samaranch. After heavy criticism from representatives of governments from around the world during the opening of the conference, he needed a strong and emphatic result from Lausanne this week.

Instead, he is virtually certain not to be at the head of the new doping agency and only narrowly avoided a split among federations by skimming over calls for soccer, tennis and cycling to be removed from the Olympic programme.

He now faces an IOC body increasingly militant about the prospect of being deprived of its right to vote on bidding cities for Olympic venues. The IOC will meet next month in an attempt to make further progress towards internal reform.