The Olympic Games open twice, first theatrically and then shortly thereafter, athletically. This comes with a certain degree of dissonance: The Opening Ceremony is reliably spectacular, protracted, soaring. It is more closely connected to the Games than, say, a screeching fighter jet flyover is to the Super Bowl, because athletes are included. But it often -- and purposefully -- more closely resembles a Broadway musical (in parts) or a spiritual revival (in others). The flame is lit and the Games are declared open. It is all quite moving, and evokes the spirit of the Olympics in all but most cynical of souls. It is intended to set a stage and awaken emotions. But score is not kept, and medals are not awarded.

With each of the 14 Olympics I covered on the ground (all of them from 1992 to 2018), the Opening Ceremony was followed by an odd pause. For months (or often years), content has been created in advance of the Olympics, profiling athletes and telling stories. And now they are here, officially begun. But not really. Not until tomorrow. (*Disclaimer: There is nearly always a little competition before the Opening Ceremony; in Paris there will be early action in archery, handball, rugby sevens and soccer. The first medals are handed out on the day after the Opening Ceremony.*)

But the actual athletic beginning of the Games is unscheduled and ethereal. It just happens, and then the Games have begun in earnest. And you know it, and feel it, when you see it -- when the Olympics pivot from the beauty of pomp and circumstance to the sweat, pain and visceral realities of competition (and medal counts). In that moment, four years of waiting become a burst of reality. For U.S. Olympic fans and viewers, there is a high probability that that moment occurs at 3:44 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon (9:44 p.m. Saturday night in Paris) in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay, the last of six swimming finals on the first full day of the Games.

The men's 4x100m freestyle relay has fallen into this position over the course of the six 21st century Olympics. On the first night of swimming at the delightful 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia shocked Team USA in the 4x100m free, the first time in Olympic history that a U.S. men's team had been beaten in this race. Better yet, in the lead-up to the race, U.S. sprinter Gary Hall, Jr. said the U.S. would not only beat the Australians, but "smash them like guitars," which led to the winners hilariously playing air guitars on the pool and set the stage for the competition that followed (and which Americans dominated).

Four years later in Athens, the U.S. finished third in the 4x100m free behind South Africa, a new low.

That was the prelude to the race that cemented the relay's heightened place in the Games: In Beijing, with Michael Phelps' eight-gold-medal pursuit on the cusp of ending in Race 2, 32-year-old American Jason Lezak swam down French world record holder Alain Bernard in the final 50m of the anchor leg. Phelps and teammates Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones morphed from resignation to madness in the final 20 seconds of the race, Phelps' face twisting into a scream as he raised his arms to the roof of the pool. The moment is still replayed endlessly. Four years later, France took the gold in London, but then on the second day of swimming in Rio, the U.S. won -- the first of Phelps' five gold medals in his redemptive and final Olympics. Five years later in Tokyo, peak Caeleb Dressel led the U.S to a gold.

There is an energy to the 4x100m freestyle relay that rises above the customary chaos of swim sprints, all of which unfold in a cascade of foam, thrashing arms and pumping legs. This adds to the anxiety. In a track and field 4x100m relay, the margins are confused by both the lane staggers and the blur of the handoffs, each of which turns a relatively simple sport complex and confusing until the final straightaway. Meanwhile, it is always difficult to know who is winning a close race in the pool -- human eyes cannot do the work of the touch pad on the wall. In a 4x100m free, witnesses are trying to determine the winner of not just one race, but four, resetting with each new leg, gasping until the swimmers emerge from their underwater starts, recalibrating the margins.

And on a broader level, the placement of the freestyle relay on the Olympic schedule has consistently set a narrative tone for the rest of the Games. Often it has been the race that awakens the audience and reminds them of what lies ahead and what the Olympics can -- and will -- be. (The men's downhill does this at the Winter Olympics).

That quality can resonate even more than usual for these Games and for their American audience. Paris is widely seen as an Olympics of rebirth, and that is more aspirational than certain. Promotional content ceases to have value when the races begin. It has been a long time since the Games were truly, fully  joyful, back to London in 2012. Subsequent Games of the 2010s created moments, because athletes deliver in remarkable ways, but a successful and memorable Olympic Games is about more than just performances -- it is about an atmospheric ethos that is felt as much as measured. (It is why so many who spent two weeks in Lillehammer in 1994, the last quaint Olympics, will never forget it. Or Sydney in 2000, the last Games before 9/11).

London recaptured some of that ebullience. Sochi began giving it back with rote functionality (and eventually, a doping scandal). Rio was a place where visitors could not help but feel that we were further disrupting the hard lives of those who awoke there every day. (Yes, this is always true to some extent, but in some places more than others). PyeongChang worked, but it was as if the Olympics had checked a biennial box. Each of these renewals felt like a regular season. Then came two Games staged awkwardly during a global pandemic, joylessness taken to a higher level. There are scholars and pundits who argue that the Olympic Games are not what they once were; it can just as reasonably be argued that they have not been given a fair chance for more than a decade.

In Paris, a reversion is possible. In a glamorous city, without the painful encumbrance of a pandemic. It's fair to argue that the Olympics won't ever again be Bud Greenspan's idyllic spectacle (and in some ways, never were), because the world changes and evolves. But at the core of the Games is a belief in the moment and the value of medals and flags (not just in dollars) that has proven durable but could use a retrofit in the next two weeks.

Four U.S. swimmers will carry that moment for Americans on Saturday afternoon. Chris Guiliano and Jack Alexy are each just 21 years old and finished one-two in the U.S. Trials in June at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Hunter Armstrong is 23 and won a gold medal in Tokyo in the 4x100m medley relay. They will be joined in the final by Dressel, who was the male star of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but later struggled with personal issues that might have ended his career and whose comeback performance in Indianapolis -- where he made the U.S. team in two events and finished a rising third in the 100m free -- was an affirmation of his talent, courage and support. He said afterward that his best times might be out of reach, but his almost-best is damn good.

They are alluring protagonists, reaching across two athletic generations. None are likely to win the 100m free later in the Games, but U.S. depth has always been its relay superpower. Giuliano and Alexy are the future; Dressel is the past. Together they are the present, and on Saturday, they can be the beginning of something larger than themselves.