TWO years ago, those Atlantans entrusted with organising the 1996 Olympics placed a large neon sign 30 ft above the traffic on the downtown connector in southern Atlanta. Every day the sign counted down the days to the Olympics. Yesterday the sign bore no numbers, just a simple message. It's here.
It's here. Atlanta took the torch yesterday, said they all to the world and lit up the American south for a 17 day long party while 3.5 billion watched. The American president came. The world came. NBC television celebrated by covering the opening without advertisements from the time the US team entered the stadium. Fifty five whole minutes without advertisements.
Medical centres around Atlanta yesterday reported a sharp increase in the numbers of visitors being treated for heat stresses as the heat index, a calculation which expresses both temperature and humidity, rose well above 100F in mid afternoon.
The rumour mill, meanwhile, continued to hum like a buzzsaw.
In the early morning it seemed as if Michelle Smith might after all be permitted to compete in the 400 metres freestyle event.
By lunchtime the swimming authorities (FINA) had decided that she could not. By early afternoon an appeal had failed. Under those circumstances Smith would now compete in the 100 and 200 metres butterfly events and the 200 and 400 metre individual medley events.
However, late yesterday evening it was suggested that ACOG, the games organisers, had located an error in its entry system and will permit the case to be reviewed again at IOC level this morning.
Either way, Smith's schedule begins with the 400 metre individual medley heats and finals this evening. She will be just one of hundreds of athletes today for whom the long, long wait finishes with the first medal of these Olympics due to be claimed by one of the competitors in the women's 10 mm air rifle event.
At last the drumroll is over. The best part of the Olympic Games has always been the Games themselves.