Chris Brown has been here before. He’s been here and it’s been horrible. At the age of 33, these are his fourth Olympic Games and each one has inched him closer to the holy grail of a 400m medal. In Sydney, he was a novice who exited in the quarter-finals. In Athens, he went out far too fast in his semi-final and tied up in the home straight, missing the final by 0.04 of a second.

In Beijing, he finally made his way professionally through the rounds and into the final, where he was dearly hanging on to a bronze medal until the very last stride. A despairing dive across the line by American runner David Neville robbed him, again by 0.04 of a second.

You get the feeling Brown’s Olympic career is going to end in one of two ways today: glorious redemption or him taking one of Danny Boyle’s little torch yokes and burning the place to the ground.

He’s already a national hero in the Bahamas, having been part of 4x400m relay teams that won silver in Beijing and bronze in Sydney, as well as collecting a host of World Championship medals. But it’s an individual medal he craves.

Having carried his country’s flag in the opening ceremony, this would be the perfect way to round off his career.

Malachy Clerkin