Later that year in Mexico City she would become the first sprinter to retain the Olympic 100 metres title, which she did in in a world record of 11.0sec.

But it could be argued that this was not the crowning moment of the Mexico Olympics for the 23-year-old who had grown up in the segregated south on a Georgia dairy farm.

That came when she decided to wear black rather than white shorts in the women's 4x100m final in support of the podium protest by 200m gold and bronze medallists Tommie Smith and John Carlos that sent shockwaves through the Olympic Movement and the wider world.

In 2018 Tyus released her autobiography, Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story, by Wyomia Tyus and Elizabeth Terzakis.

In an extended excerpt, run by NBC Sports in their Olympic Talk section, she recalled how, as she watched her team-mates raise their black-gloved fists to the sky, her thoughts immediately turned to concern for them as she began looking around to see if anybody was trying to do anything "retaliatory".

She added: "Because while some people were cheering, some people were booing. 

"They were angry. You could see it in their faces. And I kept thinking, 'I just want to be out of here'. 

"Because I didn't know what was going to happen.

"I thought 'that was so powerful and it's going to strike so many people the wrong way and I hope nobody hurts them'. 

"That was one of my first thoughts – 'I hope no-one hurts them'.

"I wanted to get out of the stadium before something happened. There were too many people there, and we were in front and kind of below everybody, and there were just a few of us black athletes. 

"And I thought, 'there are probably some black people booing too'. 

"It was a scary moment."

And yet, three days later, she allied herself to other team-mates who had made clear their understanding of what Smith and Carlos had done – which Smith later explained was not specifically meant to be an expression of Black Power.

In the 1999 HBO documentary Fists of Freedom, Smith said: "We were not antichrists. We were just human beings who saw a need to bring attention to the inequality in our country.

"I don't like the idea of people looking at it as negative. There was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head, acknowledging the American flag – not symbolising a hatred for it."

In accounts collected by John Walter and Malina Iida entitled Better Than the Best: Black Athletes Speak, Tyus recalled how she had grown up in a primarily white neighbourhood and had became aware of her race and of racial segregation at an early age.

She was forced to take an hour-long bus ride to school each day, in spite of the fact that there was a white school within walking distance. 

Racial divide also prevented Tyus from playing with the white girls that lived nearby as the nearest black family lived almost a mile away.

But the stand taken by the two US sprinters – whose actions were described by a spokesman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit", prompting their fellow countryman Avery Brundage, the IOC President, to call for them to be suspended and sent home - resonated profoundly.

Tyus recalled a meeting at which other black athletes felt the message was: "You can do whatever you want. What they have done, that said everything right there."

After Lee Evans had led home a US clean sweep in the 400m, all three winners wore black berets to their medal ceremony. 

Bob Beamon, who broke the world record in the long jump, wore black socks pulled up high at his ceremony, while fellow US bronze medallist Ralph Boston went barefoot, commenting: "They're going to have to send me home, too." 

He was not sent home.

Tyus wrote that she wasn't sure anyone noticed her sartorial support in running the anchor leg to bring the US home in a world record of 42.88sec.

But there was no mistaking her position when the team were asked afterwards by the press what they thought about the Smith and Carlos protest. 

Tyus replied: "What is there to think? They made a statement.

"We all know that we're fighting for human rights. 

"That's what they stood for on the victory stand – human rights for everyone, everywhere. 

"And to support that and to support them, I'm dedicating my medal to them. I believe in what they did."