When he finally popped out of the bubble of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the magnitude hit John Coates.
On the night of the October 1 closing ceremony, Australia's Olympic supremo left the Games precincts where he had existed for the past 16 days.
He travelled through the The Rocks, to Circular Quay.
And it was only then Coates fully realised: we've done it.
"I went downtown ... and it was the first time I had been down there during the Games," Coates told AAP.
"And I saw what was happening down at The Rocks at that time. It was something."
International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, in his closing ceremony speech, described Sydney's Games as the "best ever".
The Games were also Australia's best ever in terms of medals won - 58 in total, featuring 16 gold, 25 silver and 17 bronze.
The golden haul was from a record array of sports.
While five Australian golds came from the traditional water source of swimming, others arrived from archery, athletics, cycling, equestrian, hockey, sailing, shooting, taekwondo, beach volleyball and water polo.
The silvers stemmed from sports including basketball, canoeing, rowing, tennis, trampolining and triathlon; the bronzes from disciplines including diving and judo.
Never before - and never again - would the nation's spread of medals cover so many sports.
The overall Sydney tally was was 17 more medals than Australia harvested at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
And post-Sydney, Australia's medal collection steadily declined, though the 2004 haul of 49 medals featured a national benchmark for golds, 17.
In Beijing 2008, Australians won 46 medals; in London 2012, 35; then just 29 in Rio 2016.
But for Coates, Sydney's measure of success lay well beyond medals.
Coates wore many hats during Sydney's Games: Australian Olympic Committee president; Australian team chef de mission; Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games senior vice-president; IOC Coordination Commission member among them.
"Every day, I would get up and I'd be in the athletes' village ... so I would have the team meeting," he said.
"I would then get in a taxi and go to the morning SOCOG meeting with security and transport reporting to us.
"And then I would go to the Coordination Commission meeting that the IOC holds.
"And then you would deal with any problems during the day. It was a busy time."
So busy in the bubble, Coates hadn't entirely grasped the public significance of the Games until travelling the streets after the closing ceremony.
It was over. Sydney and an entire nation nursed collective Olympic-sized hangovers.
"It was a mixture of letdown and relief," Coates said.
And the legacy of Sydney's Games lives on.
"What I found immensely satisfying, and still do, is after those Games, (then prime minister) John Howard would say to me, I was at the so-and-so conference and all the other leaders wanted to talk to me about was the Sydney Games and how successful they were," Coates said.
"And afterwards, within the sports movement, I felt that we had paid our dues.
"We last hosted the Games in '56. We had taken another our turn and we had delivered an Olympic Games.
"And our athletes now can defend world championships or compete at any other Games, and they are treated very well because we had done such a good job in hosting those who had come to us. That was very important.
"We did what we had to do. And we did it well."
Australian Associated Press
