Britain’s medal record may have been superior to Italy’s at the Games, but their tracksuit design was the silver medallist by a very long way - something I was able to reflect on for many hours as I shared the Italians’ flight home.

The mood was, if not jubilant, then quietly pleased. And in the case of those team members who gathered at the posh end of the plane for a little orchestrated post-Olympic celebration, noisily pleased.

The Italian track-suit - dark blue, with the country’s name spelled out in gold, clearly but not in the manner of a poster, and with the national flag present but not centre stage – is a suitably chic accoutrement to athletic excellence.

Coming home from big competitions on the same plane as the athletes is often interesting but sometimes awkward.

After one of the first big international meetings I covered, the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, I found myself having a fairly long conversation with England shot putter Judy Oakes, who had been favourite to win but had to settle for silver behind her team-mate Myrtle Augee.

She was obviously upset about it and although it would have been nice to have said something which would make her feel an iota better I couldn’t think what or how.

In 1992 I was on the plane carrying the majority of the British Olympic team back from the Barcelona Games and I remember fondly the round of applause that went round as the captain achieved a landing that was more of a segue.

But I also recall a couple of members of the  women’s hockey team, who were in high spirits, turned up at my shoulder as I was writing a post-event review of the Games and the British performance and were uniquely well placed to direct the phrasing on the subject of their bronze medal-winning performance.

Awkwardness of a different kind attended my return from the 1998 European Athletics Championships in Budapest, during which I found myself seated next to Britain’s Jonathan Edwards, who had set a prodigious world triple jump record of 18.29m at the World Championships three years earlier and was travelling back with a gold which would be supplemented by Olympic gold two years later.

It’s always a good experience talking to Jonathan. He was often room-mate at foreign championships with 400 metres runner Roger Black, whom I had helped write an autobiography a few months earlier, and before too long he began sounding me out about an autobiographical effort of his own.

We went through the advantages of candour and likely templates for the structure and I wondered how long it would be before he asked me the question.

Not long as it turned out. “So obviously I’m thinking seriously about doing a book. What do you think about Ian Chadband?”

I replied that he could be sure Ian would do an excellent job for him and the topic of the conversation moved on.

Two years before we spoke, Edwards had been one of Britain’s relatively few medallists at the Atlanta Olympics, gaining silver (as did Black) in a campaign which yielded just one gold medal-winning performance, from rowers Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent in the men’s pair.

At the end of those Olympics the then Performance Director for British athletics, Malcolm Arnold, bemoaned the relative lack of financial clout available to his athletes relative to the support then accorded to many of their rivals in the US, Australia and parts of eastern Europe.

A year later the nurturing fountain of National Lottery funding began to sprinkle its magic water on the British efforts across a wide range of sports, to escalatingly good effect.

The medal totals for Britain at summer Games since then tell the tale in its essential form. 1996 - one gold, eight silvers, six bronzes.  2000 - 11 golds, 10 silvers, seven bronzes. 2004 - nine golds, nine silvers, 12 bronzes. 2008 - 19 golds, 13 silvers, 15 bronzes. 2012 - 29 golds, 17 silvers, 19 bronzes. 2016 - 27 golds, 23 silvers, 17 bronzes.

But all the Lottery funding in the world can’t buy you luck.

Among those present in the jubilating front section of the Rome-bound plane, as tall as many of the volleyball players who had taken silver after the emotional final against the hosts but far less happy, was Gianmarco Tamberi.

Every now and again an athlete emerges who has more than talent, who has charisma. You may have noticed a sprinter called Usain Bolt over the past few years - he qualifies.

Charisma is harder to quantify than gold medals. For instance, French high hurdler Pascal Martinot-Lagarde has charisma even if he is still seeking the big gold medal to go with it.

Tamberi, too, has what it takes to go above and beyond his sport.

I interviewed him in Rome two months ago ahead of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Diamond League meeting in the Italian capital.

His name had been partly made by his habit of shaving off half his beard – always the right-hand side – before competing as part of his “trademark”.

He once jokingly jibed that some of his fellow high jumpers looked as if they were “zombies” when they competed.

On that day in Rome, a day before his 24th birthday, it was the natural exuberance of Italy’s recently installed world indoor high jump champion, as he moved with glee from one TV crew or gaggle of reporters to the next - the colour of his character, in fact - which was so compelling.

Last month Tamberi’s run-up to the Rio Games accelerated as he won the European title in Amsterdam and then, at the IAAF Monaco Diamond League meeting, set an Italian record of 2.39m before injuring his ankle so badly attempting 2.41m that his Olympic prospects were over in an agonised moment.

Tamberi was at the London 2012 Games, failing to reach the final. Had he been able to go to Rio, of course, there is no saying what he would have done. Many a bright prospect has snuffed itself out in qualifying at the grandest test of all.

But the odds are he would have been in the mix, maybe even inspiredly so. Having put himself through watching both the qualifying competition and a final which promised much but eventually yielded gold for Canada’s Commonwealth champion Derek Drouin at the less than stellar height of 2.37m, one can only speculate what his thoughts must have been...

As he joined the line of those filing off the plane for the waiting photographers, baseball cap in reverse position, foot still immobliised in plaster under a special boot, Gianmarco Tamberi was an untold Olympic story.

It would be nice to think that narrative will develop to fruition in Tokyo 2020.