"Flip the track. Please & thank you", Holloway wrote. "It’s possible. The wind is -4.6 right now. Please. Think about the athletes & not the viewers.”"

Could high hurdlers and 100m runners - with the latter also getting driving rain at the end of the programme - have had a different experience at the Flora Duffy Stadium in Devonshire as the palm trees around the arena began to thresh and sway in worsening conditions?

Instead of getting what Teahna Daniels, who narrowly beat fellow American Gabby Thomas in a women’s 100m run into a 5.2 metres per second headwind, described as "a smack in the face" upon rising from the blocks, the sprinters might have been super-powered to incredible times.

Even more so in the case of the men's 100m runners, who concluded the programme running into a headwind of -5.6mps.

Certainly flipping the track so that they ran with the wind at their backs would have done the sprinters no harm - assuming the wind levels didn't rise to the point where they were lifted off the track towards the Gulf of Mexico.

But as Holloway told a trackside interviewer shortly before the men’s 110m hurdles got underway with his lane empty: "It’s as high as -4.6mps - I don’t think that is great for the hurdle event. I’m trying to do consistency, that is the main cue for this season, so I decided to pull out of this race."

What such an ongoing buffeting would do to the finely tuned workings of hurdling technique is something the world champion and Olympic silver medallist clearly had in mind, with the prospect of injury also a possibility.

Then again, while Holloway would hardly be complaining about a time that spoilt his consistency by being freakishly fast, surely the idea of being blown into the hurdles would carry equal potential for harm?

And also - how realistic were his pre-meeting pleas for the set-up to be altered?

On these questions I am able to offer an expert view.

Belonging, naturally, to someone else.

Namely athletics polymath Alfonz Juck - journalist, TV commentator, agent and regular organiser of meetings within Europe, most notably the renowned Ostrava Golden Spike which used to be Usain Bolt's favourite.

Alfonz’s response to the two questions above was as follows: "The track needs to be approved for the other direction sprint option. If technically feasible then you need to move the timing in case you do not have a second package of timing system.

"In many cases the organiser would love to have this option, but it is simply technically not possible.

"There are meets which are offering this option, that means they are ready for it, technically, materially and with personnel. But to do it during a meeting which goes for only two hours - that is very tough.

"And in the case of too strong wind like there were in Bermuda I do not see as a good option running in the other direction as the times would be still not regular."

However, it's a pity in a way that the awesome talent of Holloway - who last month equalled his own world indoor record of 7.29sec in winning the world title in Belgrade - was not allowed to go full tilt with a gale behind it.

What might he have stopped the clock at? Certainly something extravagantly faster than his legal personal best of 12.81, just 0.01 off the world record set in 2012 by his American compatriot Aries Merritt.

There is fascination in such speculation. On occasions when top performers have been allowed to let rip with the elements in concert the results have been spectacular. And examples where massive performances have been invalidated by relatively minor additional wind assistance remain agonisingly vivid in the memory.

That said - I had momentarily forgotten about Briton Jonathan Edwards' monster triple jump at Villeneuve d’Ascq in 1995 until my friend and ace statistician Hilary Evans, of Olympedia, jogged my memory. I am indebted to him also for a swathe of other notable instances…

The high-profile event of the men’s 100m contains several hair-raising performances achieved in over-optimum conditions.

In 1978, US sprinter William Snoddy, running in Dallas, recorded a time of 9.87 - comfortably inside what was then the official world 100m record of 9.95 set by his compatriot Jim Hines in winning the 1968 Mexico Olympic title.

Only problem - the wind reading was +11.2mps, that is, a massive 9.2mps above the limit allowable for records to be set. Dateline, by the way, was April 1…

Ten years later Carl Lewis ran 9.78 at Indianapolis - comfortably inside the then-world record of 9.83 set by Canada's Ben Johnson at the previous year’s Rome World Championships, which was subsequently annulled for doping offences. Sadly for American Lewis it was achieved with a following wind of +5.2mps.

In 1996, Obadele Thompson of Barbados produced a starting time of 9.69 - way inside the world record of 9.85 held by American Leroy Burrell since 1994. But not only did Thompson have a +5.7mps tailwind, he was also operating at altitude in the thin air of El Paso.

The 100m sprinter with most to regret with regard to wind readings was, surely, James Sanford of the US. His 1980 clocking of 9.88 at Westwood was well inside Hines's world record - but annulled for record purposes by a wind reading only marginally over the legal limit at +2.3mps.

As far as the high hurdles go, the most unfortunate operator was Roger Kingdom of the IS, Olympic champion in 1984 and 1988. His time of 12.89 at the World Cup event in Barcelona on September 10 1989 bettered the world record of 12.92 he had set a the previous month’s Zürich meeting - but a wind reading of +2.6mps invalidated the effort. I saw both of those races, I now realise…

The high altitude venue of Sestriere, in Italy’s western Alps, was a popular and lucrative venue for high-flying athletes during the 1990s and produced numerous eye-catching times, heights and distances.

In 1992, Mike Powell, who had set the men’s long jump world record of 8.95 metres that stands to this day in winning the previous year’s world title, cleared a cool 8.99 metres at the Alpine venue. Altitude, and a following wind of +4.4mps, debarred the American's effort from the official record books.

Three years later there was a variation on the normal Sestriere theme as Cuba’s Iván Pedroso jumped 8.96m. There was the altitude of course. But the wind measurement only showed as +1.2mps. Strong speculation that the wind gauge had been "obstructed" at a key moment in the effort also helped to annul any talk of a real world record.

Which brings us to Villeneuve d’Ascq. On June 6 1995, during the European Cup competition, Edwards - who two months later would set successive world records of 18.16m and 18.29m at the World Championships in Gothenburg - produced the most marvellous men's triple jump in history, soaring out to a mind-boggling 18.43m - nearly half a metre further than the then world record of 17.97m held since 1985 by Willie Banks of the US.

Edwards looked understandably shattered when he realised that his jump of jumps would not be the one to put the world record out of reach because the wind gauge registered +2.4mps. Excruciating.

As if in a dream, but it really happened, I recall I was in a lower-level mixed zone in the stadium that had a sideways view out to the triple jump runway and pit above. Edwards went over like an aeroplane.