When people look back on the European Athletics Team Championships that have just taken place at the Silesian Stadium as part of the European Games there is a good chance that Jolien Boumkwo will spring to mind - or perhaps that should be step forward.

Artfully clipped and edited, the video of the Belgian shot putter’s good-natured, stately progress in the 100 metres hurdles to gain her country at least a point following the withdrawal of its nominated athlete has gone viral in the last couple of days.

Le Soir, announcing the late change, had insisted "Ce n’est pas une blague", which translated means, "This is not a joke".

While Boumkwo undertook her comradely mission with a smile on her face there was no suggestion of it being a joke - it was achieved with the utmost care.

In tracksuit trousers, the 29-year-old drew warm applause as she was introduced in the stadium before doing her thing and finishing with a final sprint in 32.81sec.

That is surely, in its way, a world record for the event. But will World Athletics ratify it I wonder?

"My team is the most important thing for me," Boumkwo said. "I couldn´t let it happen to lose by one point. That´s why I´ve considered taking part in 100m hurdles. There was no risk for me if I took it calmly.

"Maybe it´s once in a lifetime opportunity to take a part in such run. I really enjoyed the race. There were a few doubts in my mind but now I can tell I´m glad about this new experience."

The last time athletics followers had witnessed such a conjunction was at the 2012 Olympics in London when, crazed with joy after winning the men’s discus title, Germany’s Robert Harting shredded his shirt and draped himself in the national flag before heading for the high hurdles that were being set out for the next track event.

Running along the outside lane he flipped his left leg over each of the barriers other than the last one, which was being put in position by a blazered official. It must have been something of a shock for the latter as the be-flagged 6ft 7in figure veered heavily around him before padding on in his lap of honour.

Alas for Boumkwo, who had finished seventh in the previous day’s shot put, her above-and-beyond efforts could not prevent Belgium being relegated to the Second Division along with Turkey and Norway.

But that is a detail that will certainly fade long before the memory of her commitment to the team cause.

There was a kind of nobility in Boumkwo’s actions. By that token, in terms of commitments, Montenegro’s Dragan Pešić was the noblest of them all.

Pešić is a decathlete, so there would at least have been some familiarity about what was effectively, for him, a multi-event Championship.

On the final day of the Third Division competition he earned fourth-place points for Montenegro with 1.85 metres in the men’s high jump having already represented them in the 400m, 400m hurdles and 4x100m.

Only the mixed 4x400 relay remained before 29-year-old could take a well-earned rest…

The Pešić family were putting themselves out for the cause in a big way as Dragan’s older brother Darko took second place in the 110m hurdles and also competed in the 4x100m relay and 4x400m mixed relay.

The Boumkwo and Pešić perspective falls within one of the sport’s great traditions. Down the years, club athletes have found themselves getting roped in to unfamiliar events to fill gaps and earn points. It is a case of "When Duty Calls".

The statistics from the concluding event of the latest European Athletics Team Championships, the 4x400m mixed relay, show that The Netherlands finished a distant last, some four seconds adrift of seventh-place Spain.

The circumstances are not obvious from the figures. But halfway through his circuit of the track, the Dutch third-leg runner Terrence Agard, running in a knot of others, suddenly came to grief.

As he stuttered and stopped, then continued, then stuttered, it seemed as if he had been spiked.

Athletics, we are told repeatedly, is an individual sport. But the template of the Team Championships is different.

Agard, as the field moved away from him around the final bend, was facing the truth of that fact - and it was painful.

He hobbled onwards.

Watching him come down the home straight, hardly able to put weight on his injured leg, to the urgent, hovering figure of last-leg runner Eveline Saalberg was excruciating.

After handing over the baton - duty done - he subsided to the track and lay on his side clutching his left hamstring. Agard had done himself a lot of no good over those final, agonised 200 metres. But he had also done himself - and his team - a lot of good.