But if you look at the reports of his outstanding exploits in the IAAF Diamond League this season, including a victory in the opening meeting at Doha in 18.06 metres which put him third in the all-time lists behind Britain’s world record holder Jonathan Edwards and Kenny Harrison of the United States, you will see only the three names credited.

And that, he added with a smile, meant his mother was getting pretty miffed about his continuing athletic achievements…

The 22-year-old from Santiago de Cuba was sitting at the quayside press event held to publicise this evening’s International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Diamond League meeting here , and whenever he cared to turn his head to the left he had before him the vista of Lake Geneva, viewed through bobbing, moored yachts.

The prospect for Pichardo is no less attractive.

Less than two weeks after his huge effort in Qatar he added two centimetres to his personal best at a meeting back in Havana. So he is now a mere centimetre short of the mark which earned Harrison the 1996 Olympic title in Atlanta – and just 21 centimetres shy of the world record set by Edwards at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg.

Hobby horse! Here boy! Down….and off we go….the all-time list on the IAAF website makes no mention of the world record Edwards set roughly 20 minutes before his fabled mark of 18.29m. On his first jump he became the first man to break 18m with a legal wind level, recording 18.16m.

OK. Dismount. And on we go…

Pichardo is very sensibly keeping exciteable media talk about breaking Edwards’ 20-year-old mark to manageable levels by insisting that it is a distant rather than an immediate ambition.

“My objective at the moment is to stabilise my technique,” he said. “I want to be jumping around the 18m mark on a regular basis. In the long-term, and I mean the long-term, I will be trying to reach the great world record. But my main goal this season is to try and win the world title.”

This young Cuban may yet be searching for his perfect jump, but right there was the perfect response to that old press favourite, the “When are you going to break the world record” question.

What may speed matters along with regard to Pichardo’s upward – or should I say forward – progress is the presence of another prodigiously talented young athlete, Christian Taylor. 

When this 25-year-old from Fayetteville, Georgia is not branching out into the long jump or 400 metres, something he spent a lot of the last season doing, he is a triple jumper who has already won the 2011 world and 2012 Olympic titles.

On that hot night in Doha two months ago, he produced an extraordinary response to Pichardo’s 18.06m with a final effort of 18.04m.

No other triple jump competition had previously involved more than one man surpassing 18m, and the pair thus became only the fourth and fifth men in history to better that mark, following Edwards, Harrison and Teddy Tamgho of France, who reached 18.04m in winning the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.

Pichardo said he had learned a lot from re-watching that performance by Tamgho, whom he added had been “a huge inspiration” to him.

Tonight, Pichardo and Taylor meet again for the first time since that competition in Doha.

The weather forecast is good. The muggy conditions of Tuesday night have freshened and brightened here. Pichardo likes the temperature - and he also likes the triple jump runway at the stadium, although he can’t exactly say why.

 “The competition with Christian [Taylor] is a very positive thing,” said Pichardo. “It helps both of us. But having a lead over him is a good thing to have – and I want to remain in the lead.”

Last season the men’s high jump, energised by the presence of two superb new exponents in Ukraine’s world champion Bohdan Bondarenko and Qatar’s world indoor champion Mutaz Essa Barshim, began to reach new heights – if not literally, as the world record of 2.45m set in 1993 by Pichardo’s compatriot Javier Sotomayor (no double names for this Cuban) still stands, then certainly in terms of consistent high achievement.

This year a similar phenomenon has occurred in the men’s javelin, where the shock winner of the London 2012 title, Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Czech Republic’s 2013 world champion Vitaz Vitezslav - coached by the legend that is Jan Zelezny - both stand lower in this year’s world rankings than Julius Yego of Kenya, who produced a last round effort of 91.39m last month to win at the Birmingham Diamond League meeting. 

Now, it appears, Pichardo and Taylor appear ready to spring their own event forward into an era of similar competitive progression.

Oh, by the way Mr Dick Pound - what was that you were saying the other day about future Olympics possibly not being able to afford space for events such as the triple jump?