Next week, the postmortems on the Vancouver Olympics will begin. So will look-aheads for the next Olympic Games: London in 2012, Sochi, Russia, in 2014 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Six years seems a long time away, but Vancouver discovered (as do all Olympic cities) that time passes quickly and budgets often explode.
After the surge of pride and exultation that Brazil and Rio de Janeiro felt after winning the Summer Games for 2016, city, state and national authorities are staring at the considerable challenges ahead.
In 1960, Brazil moved the capital from Rio to Brasilia in the interior. Rio, therefore, lost the power and influence that goes with being a capital city. Well-educated, middle-class people departed. Simultaneously, Sao Paulo leaped ahead as Brazil's economic capital. Its population is twice that of Rio's, its private wealth more than double.
Rio will need massive investments in infrastructure for the Games. The city played host to the Pan American Games in 2007, and will use those sites again. But the sites are far from where visitors will stay. An extension of one of the two existing subways will cost a bomb, in part because of distance and the required tunnelling under a mountain.
Airport upgrades, more hotels and new sporting venues will be needed, as will a massive overhaul of the famed Maracana Stadium, site of the World Cup finals and the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. It was just closed for at least two years of renovations.
Nothing can detract from Rio's breathtaking beauty, but one is struck by how little new building has occurred in recent decades - except in the omnipresent favelas, or shantytowns, that climb up hillsides almost everywhere. It's impossible to say with precision how many favelas exist in Rio, since some are very small while others sprawl over large areas and can be counted as two or three.
Roughly a fifth - some experts suggest a quarter - of Rio's population lives in these favelas, reflecting the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities of Brazil. Their populations are growing all the time.
Three hours spent in one of the largest ones, Rochinha, showed a lot of people working very hard to earn a living, either in the favela or as day employees elsewhere. Storefront Protestant churches, part of the Pentecostal movement that has swept through Brazil (and other places in Latin America), dotted the streets. There were some new housing developments, although only a pinprick of what's needed.
There was also bad sanitation, exceptionally cramped and unhealthy housing conditions, and other manifestations of severe poverty. It being broad daylight, and with only three of us and a local guide, there was no evidence of crime or drugs.
But crime and drugs are present in the favelas and, by extension, in Rio. Brazilian authorities can build all the infrastructure for the Games, but Rio's security situation is their other enormous challenge.
Brazil's murder rate is about five times higher than that of the United States. It's estimated that the country has a light-arms arsenal of 16 million guns. Voters in a national referendum rejected controls on gun ownership. Death by gunfire is the most common form of mortality for young people between 14 and 25, with the rates among young black males the highest in the country. Almost 50,000 people are killed violently in Brazil each year, mostly by handguns.
In Rio, only 3 per cent of homicide cases are solved. Police agencies are usually organizationally divided. Police officers are underpaid and inadequately trained, and an estimated 1,000 civilian deaths a year are caused by police.
Most of the violent crime occurs in the favelas and springs from the drug trade controlled by three large syndicates that import cocaine and other drugs from Bolivia, Paraguay and Colombia. Favela residents tell pollsters their great fear is being hit by a stray bullet in the gang shootouts, among themselves or with police.
Tourists are unlikely to be involved in gun violence (although a Dutchman was shot and wounded two weeks ago), but an omnipresent possibility of muggings and petty theft exists.
Governments are spending lots of money in some favelas to provide better public services. Police authorities are now apparently working together. In six favelas, community policing (whereby young officers are stationed full-time in the area) is showing success. Extending this approach will take time, money, personnel and persistence.
Some cynical (realistic?) observers say the best way to ensure security for the Olympics is for the authorities to make a quiet arrangement with the drug kingpins so there's no trouble during the Games. Others see the Games as an opportunity to try to fix the social and police problems.
Rio's an alluring city in a country finally pulling itself toward a much brighter future. Getting the infrastructure done and security improved are the challenges before lighting the torch in 2016.