When ACOG press chief Bob Brennan was asked at a press conference how the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games will be remembered, he answered that it would be up to the media to decide.
It was the second cue for the international journalists, already with sharpened knives at the ready, to unleash the cynicism, frustration and latent vitriol which had been building up over the past two weeks. The first cue was provided by the athletes, coaches and delegations.
Their general dis-satisfaction with the organisation of the Games gave commentators the initial confidence that any negative beatings inflicted on organisers ACOG by the press would not be seen merely as petty media whingeing. So here goes. How did Atlanta ever win the bid to stage the Olympics? The feelings of many were summed by T-shirts which have suddenly started doing the rounds, in which ACOG stood for 'ACOG Cheated On Greece'.
It referred to the events of seven years ago when Atlanta won the right to host the 1996 Olympics, beating out the challenge of hot favourite Athens, the Greek capital which hosted the first modern Olympics 100 years ago. Perhaps the biggest body blow to Games organisers came from International Olympic Committee president Juan Samaranch.
Not through something he said, but what he so deliberately did not say. After every summer Games, Samaranch always includes in his closing ceremony speech 'the greatest Games ever'. He said it after Seoul and after Barcelona. Those words were significantly absent at the Atlanta Olympic Stadium.
This is not a tirade against American organisation. By all accounts, the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles was superbly organised and, despite the Soviet-led boycott, was credited with saving the Olympic movement.
Indeed, it was complacency over the Americans' famed organisational skills which leaned in favour of Atlanta being awarded the Games. But as it turned out, the 1996 Olympics was very much third world stuff. The woeful transport system was the main target of criticism.