For British followers, the race will always be linked with the BBC commentary by David Coleman which concluded with one of the earliest of this great journalist’s occasional “Colemanballs”, to use the term later coined by the magazine which used to delight in listing them, Private Eye: "And David Hemery is going to take the gold. David Hemery wins for Britain! Hemery takes the gold, in second place Hennige and who cares who's third? It doesn't matter."

It did matter, in fact, to Hemery’s fellow Brit John Sherwood, who produced a surging finish from lane eight which took him from seventh to third on a photo-finish over two others as a mass of straining bodies crossed the line in race two – the first having already been won by the tall blond Englishman now resting his hands on his knees as the first obvious evidence of the extraordinary efforts he had just expended.

Hemery had raced most of the final 200m without sight of any opponents after establishing a commanding lead from lane six. He had passed the athlete outside him - United States runner Ron Whitney, who had run an Olympic record of 49.00 in the semi-final - after the third hurdle, and had overtaken his compatriot after the sixth hurdle.

He recalled afterwards that he had only realised he had won when he saw a BBC camera team scurrying towards him and said that he had been “running scared".

No-one would have thought so as his technically superb effort, drilled over months and years by Billy Smith, coach at Boston University where he did an engineering degree course and, back in England, Fred Housden, saw him finish 10 metres clear.

Once he had caught his rasping breath, the sound of his clipped tones analysing his performance with clear-sighted modesty created a frisson of appreciation throughout the British viewing public - a frisson that extended all the way to our family home as we watched on TV, and particularly, perhaps for a variety of reasons, to my mother.

It seemed fitting indeed that his medal should be presented by Lord Burghley, Britain's winner of the event 40 years earlier, who was subsequently depicted in the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire.

But Hemery did not fit into the Burghley role in one important respect, as he told me when I interviewed him in 2001, shortly after he had become President of UK Athletics.

"At that time, people didn't like to say that they had worked hard to get to where they were. But I was able to say that I had achieved what I had by working my backside off," he said.

The phrase was resolutely British, but the attitude it exemplified owed more to the American attitude of mind which Hemery, whose family moved to the States when he was 10, had encountered throughout his formative years.

There has always been something saintly about David Hemery. But you have to understand that, were he a saint, he would not want to be just any old saint. He would want to be the best saint. "I love to compete," he admitted.

After retiring from athletics in 1972, he turned his attention to the BBC TV Superstars programme, where he won three titles over the course of a decade.

And 33 years after the Olympic 400m hurdles victory which made his name, the man who stands as a shorthand for the old athletic virtues of decency, dedication and ability still had the lean frame of an athlete.

“My metabolism, I guess,” he said at the time. But there were also to be factored into that modest sweeping statement the regular runs the then 56-year-old made over Marlborough Downs, stopwatch in hand.

As far as Hemery was concerned, it seemed, old habits didn't die hard. They didn't die at all.

He told me that back in 1968, as he prepared for the Mexico City Olympics, he heard rumours that the US hurdlers were experimenting with steroids in their training camp at Lake Tahoe. "I had no idea what they were for," Hemery recalled. "I thought they were some kind of stimulant. But in a way they helped me because I went to Mexico thinking, 'Damn it, I'll show them that you can't win by cheating'".

A sentiment straight out of Boys' Own Stories ­but Hemery damn well went and showed them. How he would have behaved had he not been able to damn well show them, is something which creates a rare phenomenon ­ of Hemery nonplussed.

"I'm grateful that I never had to experience that," he said. "I was convinced I could win. The Americans did me a big favour because they sent me into the race with my adrenaline soaring."

Hemery was right about that. But another strongly voiced opinion proved less correct, as he looked ahead with unwavering confidence to a sporting event which Britain, and specifically Prime Minister Tony Blair, had pledged to hold in London – the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships.

The lofty Olympian had been a key part of the team which successfully secured the World Championships for Britain. Originally, they were due for 2003, but after a debacle over Wembley Stadium’s hosting role, they had been re-scheduled for 2005 at the yet-to-be-built venue of Picketts Lock in Lee Valley Park.

The recent departure from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport of Chris Smith, who eventually opposed the idea of a rebuilt Wembley sharing with athletics, had prompted fresh suggestions that there might yet be one more turn of the merry-go-round at Lee Valley's expense.

Hemery was having none of it. "Absolutely not," he says. "Because the Government is fully supportive of the new scheme. Can you imagine Britain ever trying for another international event if we don't see through our commitment here?"

Ah well. Can’t win ‘em all David…