To throw a party and invite the world is an ambitious and extremely costly exercise with no guarantee that the event will be successful and that the guests will go home with memories to treasure. Over the next fortnight the city of Athens will learn whether the decision to spend almost €6 billion on the Olympics - a third more than the original estimate - was worth the effort and the expense.
Staging the Olympics has become such a mammoth exercise that it may now only be suitable for major world cities which already have much of the required infrastructure in place. For Greece, a country of only 10 million people, the sheer scale of organising the games of the 28th Olympiad has been enormous and will have financial repercussions for years to come.
Last night's spectacular opening ceremony augured well for the Greeks in their hopes of convincing the world that misgivings about their ability to stage a memorable games will be allayed. But even the magnificent opening night spectacle was somewhat overshadowed by events elsewhere with Greek athletic icon, Kostas Kentris, involved in one of the most bizarre Olympic scandals of recent times. While incidents like this quickly become part of Olympic folklore and will be overtaken by the next big story from the games, the International Olympic Committee will be far more concerned that the Athens Games can reinvigorate a movement that has seen its influence and stature eroded over recent years.
Although new IOC president Jacques Rogge has been unequivocal in his stance on corruption and drug-taking, a sceptical world remains to be convinced that the Olympics still occupy the pre-eminent role in world sport. The Corinthian principles of the founder of the modern games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, have been abandoned over recent decades as the games have been turned into a multi-billion dollar business that has as much in common with high finance as high achievement. When Athens staged the first modern games in 1896, there were 13 participating nations and 311 athletes, all male. In the intervening 108 years the Olympics have grown at such a pace that this year's games will need a security force of 70,000 to protect the 12,000 competitors, 11,000 media and 250,000 visitors.
The IOC may consider this as proof of the well-being of the Olympic movement but the future success of the games lies in restoring belief and confidence that what the world is watching in Athens can be trusted and believed. While the IOC can play its part in ensuring that the games are as drug-free as possible, ultimately the responsibility lies with the competitors themselves.
It is still a wonderful achievement and privilege to compete at the Olympic Games. Fortunately, most athletes recognise that and compete in an honest and fair manner. They may not come close to Olympic immortality but these competitors have as critical a role in safeguarding the future of the games as any of the stars who will be remembered for winning gold, silver or bronze.