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If a sporting event takes place, but ESPN SportsCenter does not see it, did the event really happen?
That is a philosophical conundrum many US Olympians find themselves pondering as they wait for their fortnight in the spotlight to come around again.
Their apparent invisibility was a topic that kept coming up at Team USA's "media summit" in Dallas this week.
Swimmer Jessica Hardy described it best when she told me "most Americans think we only race once every four years, which is frustrating given how hard we work".
But nowhere is that frustration more keenly felt that within the mighty US athletics team.
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“
I wouldn't say it's dying but it's always been one of the smaller sports
”
Sanya Richards-Ross
At least the swimmers can lay claim to the undisputed daddy of the US Olympic scene, Michael Phelps. And it is not as if swimming gets huge coverage anywhere else in the world, apart from Australia perhaps.
But athletics, or track and field, does get media attention elsewhere. It is also quick to remind every other sport that it is the most important, popular and purest of the Olympic disciplines.
So why is it so hard to find any athletics news in the world's athletics superpower?
The day before Allyson Felix arrived in Texas for a marathon of interviews and photo shoots, she had recorded the fastest 100m of the season in Qatar, beating the reigning Olympic champions at 100m and 200m in the process.
Worth a story, you might have thought, particularly when you consider that Felix's compatriot Justin Gatlin - a double Olympic champion - had done the same thing in the men's race.
But when the eight-time world champion took the stage with seven other track and field stars at the Dallas summit, it seemed as if it was up to her to break the news as well.
This is probably what prompted 400m hurdles world champion Lashinda Demus to provide the most memorable soundbite of the entire gathering.
"When we get on the track we know we are taking part in a dying sport," she said to the visible alarm of every listening employee of the sport's governing body USA Track and Field (USATF).
But with the "dying sport" cat out of the bag and running free, Demus's team-mates were asked for their views on the matter when eight media "huddles" formed after the main press conference.
Wallace Spearmon, another world champion and 200m specialist, clearly did not get the urgent USATF memo because he picked up where Demus left off, explaining how whole tiers of American track and field athletes were giving up, unable to make it pay, or even get the meets.
The dust had settled somewhat, however, by the time I got a chance to put this to Sanya Richards-Ross.
cont @http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18083154
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