A review Kitty Chiller would have dreamt of conducting with a wide smile began instead with an inadvertent, audible sigh.
This 9am media call was scheduled to be the Australian team boss's last at these Olympics, but nothing much has been predictable in Rio and that's precisely what dominated discussion.
As indefatigable as Chiller has been over a four-year chef de mission's role she relinquished a day job for (meeting the standards of her inner perfectionist), on this rainy closing ceremony morning she had the air of someone plain exhausted.
Chiller's face said that. Her sigh said that. And it kind of summed up Australia's Olympics. Games in which there have been joyous exaltations, certainly. But more - many more - sighs of exasperation and lament. The near-miss Games.
Verbally, Chiller did not open with that. "I'm extremely proud of our team" were the first six words of a closing state-of-the-nation she took 10 minutes to read.
Chiller tabled excellent reasons that Australians should join her in feeling this way: Kim Brennan, the women's rugby sevens team, Kyle Chalmers, the women's 4 x 100m freestyle relay team, Jared Tallent becoming Australia's most successful Olympic track and field athlete, Australia's first team medal in archery, first medal in modern pentathlon - a gold at that thanks to Chloe Esposito - equestrian's first medal for Australia since Beijing in 2008, a first gold in shooting since Athens in 2004.
Chiller reminded everyone present that 43 per cent of the team in Rio was under 25. The inference? If that doesn't bode well for Tokyo 2020, what does?
Nothing if not matter-of-fact, it did not take Chiller long to cut to the crunch. Eight gold medals and a total tally - of 29 - less than the haul from London four years ago make campaign Rio, in crude terms, Australia's least successful Olympics in 24 years.
That wasn't just short of where Australia, and Chiller, openly aimed to be. It was, Chiller pronounced solemnly on Sunday, "well short".
While insistent the Australian team should largely be proud of itself for what it produced athletically in Brazil, Chiller ultimately termed the experience, "the most trying Games for many, many people on the official side. Much more so than any Games that I've been involved with and this is my fourth Games as an official."
