The International Olympic Committee's inspectors certainly take their responsibilities seriously.
Every session of their visit to Madrid over-ran as they asked a barrage of questions about the finer details of the city's plans for the 2012 Olympics.
Having seen the majority of the venues at first hand now, Madrid appears to have most of the answers.
 | IOC inspector Frankie Fredericks strikes a pose in Madrid |
There is plenty of available land, all of it in the hands of the city authorities.
Major works have already begun at what will be the main stadium site, where an aquatic centre is under construction, along with a new metro station which is designed to handle large crowds.
The idea of having an athletes' village so close to the main Olympic ring is clearly one of the main selling points.
Competitors will be able to walk to the main stadium, pool and gymnastics hall, although persuading them to give up the comforts of an air-conditioned bus might be tricky.
The two other clusters of venues make a lot of sense, and it all adds up to a compact, neat, and credible bid. But is that enough?
Some 80% of the venues are going to be built whether the Games come to Madrid or not, so the physical legacy of the Olympics will not be huge.
Especially when you compare, say, with London's ambitious plans for an enormous Olympic park in a run-down area of the East End, and the legacy is greater in New York too.
There may be substantial support for the bid here, but what evidence of genuine enthusiasm?
Yes, of course, from the city authorities, but I did not get the feeling that one way or the other most people were unduly concerned.
If the bid has opponents, only a handful, bearing banners describing themselves as "victims of tourism", could be bothered to stand up and demonstrate their views when the IOC's representatives were in town.
|  The IOC inspectors will need some stamina to survive the next few weeks |
So do the Madrilenos really care?
The bid team unveiled their banner in front of 60,000 football supporters at the Bernabeu stadium, to polite applause.
Hey ho, such things are difficult to judge. It is possible, however, to reasonably question whether Madrid has got the 'wow' factor.
Increasingly, IOC members seem to be favouring bids with added value, something a little extra.
I think the Madrid bid is a bit short of big ideas, on the lines of staging the beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower, or along Horseguards Parade.
Some might dismiss that as a gimmick, but it does not do to be too stylish, cool or European about these things.
Madrid's many fine buildings and historical streets will serve largely as a backdrop, not a prop in the grand production as conceived by their rivals.
The commissioners worked hard. They asked for extra details, and sought additional briefings on areas where they need more information.
They posed for the odd photograph, even took penalties for the benefit of the cameras in the Bernabeu.
But they stuck to their task, and spoke to no-one from the media apart from at the final press conference, where Madrid's bid was given careful, considered praise without prejudice to the other four candidates.
They will need some stamina to survive the next few weeks, and doubtless will work long hours to draw up their report for members on the relative merits of the five great cities they will inspect.
They may even place Madrid at the top of the pile for its technical merits.
There is to be no official ranking, although it does not take a genius to work out which way they're thinking.
But I'm not sure that's going to be enough for the members whose votes are the only measure that really counts.
MMIX
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The winning moment
