With the staggered start, it took a while for his performance to become apparent. But, running in his trademark hand-made golden spikes, he sailed off the top bend, leaving his rivals metres adrift.

For once, he pushed himself all the way to the line, roared on by a capacity crowd of 50,000 who gasped in astonishment when the time came up on the electronic scoreboard.

To put the time in context, the winning margin of 1.11secs over Brazil's Sanderlei Parrela was the largest ever in a World or Olympic 400m final. His run smashed Butch Reynolds' 11-year-old mark, then one of the longest-standing records in athletics. And, having set the 200m world record with 19.32secs at the Atlanta Olympics, Johnson joined Tommie Smith as the only man to hold both records simultaneously.

The sheer speed of his performance overshadowed the fact that he was also making history by being the only man to win a world title at every world championships in the 1990s.