The country's world indoor champion Gianmarco Tamberi - and his compatriot Marco Fassinotti - compete against a talent-stacked field, including the pair who have taken the event to new heights of competitiveness in recent years, Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Bohdan Bondarenko of Ukraine.

Tamberi, who turned 24 today, comes from high jumping stock.

His grandfather, Bruno, jumped 1.86 metres in 1939, and his father Marco, who was 15th at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, once held the Italian indoor record with 2.28m.

And while he is young, he is nevertheless experienced in an event where he took European Junior bronze medal back in 2011, having competed at the 2012 Olympics, the 2014 European Championships and last year’s Beijing World Championships.

Over the winter, all that experience has begun to tell at a higher level as he has completed an unbeaten sequence of five competitions, culminating in his global indoor gold, setting an Italian indoor record of 2.38m.

The dramatic nature of that victory in Portland three months ago was perfectly fitting for an athlete who habitually shaves off half his beard - always the right-hand side - before competing as part of his “trademark”, and who once jokingly described his fellow high jumpers as looking as if they were “zombies” when they competed.

“I made the Olympic Games in 2012 and for me it was just a competition for like appearance,” Tamberi said.

“I was not fighting for champion because it was impossible for me to get something there.

“Now it is a bit different.

“I want this Olympic Games, to be one of the most important in the high jump there.

“So I have been fighting and training a lot and doing everything 200 per cent to make my dream real.”

Tamberi wants to make a flourish on home territory, although he is still jumping off an approach run two steps short of his usual preparation after spending recent weeks in heavy training for Rio 2016. 

Barshim - whose 2.43m in 2014 made him the second highest jumper behind world record holder Javier Sotomayor - only managed 2.25m in his home Diamond League meeting in Doha last month and has also dampened expectations of early season fireworks.

He says he and his coach have devised a carefully graded progress towards Rio which will prevent him getting burned out by the crucial part of the season.

“I don’t like it, but I have to do it,” he said with a rueful grin.

Also in the mix will be the Briton who finished second to Tamberi at the World Indoors, Robbie Grabarz, and China’s exuberant 2015 world silver medallist Zhang Guowei. 

But with two Diamond League wins to his credit already this season, Bondarenko looks the man to beat.

The evening’s action in the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea meeting, the fifth of the 14 IAAF Diamond League meetings this season, throws up a number of interesting questions other than the likely Olympic pecking order in the high jump.

Will Colombia’s 2013 and 2015 world triple jump champion Caterine Ibarguen see the winning run she has extended over 33 contests since taking silver at the London 2012 Games ended by the up-and-coming talent of Venezuela’s 20-year-old world indoor champion Yulimar Rojas?

Will the two young Kenyans who have dominated the Diamond Race 3,000m steeplechase in recent years, 21-year-old Conseslus Kipruto, the 2013 winner, and 23-year-old Jairus Birech, who has taken the last two titles, finally manage to overcome the physical and psychological challenge of their wily 34-year-old compatriot Ezekiel Kemboi, the double Olympic and quadruple world champion?

Will Ethiopia’s world 5,000m champion Almaz Ayana, who already has two Diamond League wins this season with the latter - her 14min 16.31sec in Rabat - being the fifth fastest time in history, get even closer to her ambition of breaking the 2008 world record of 14:11.15 set by compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba?

Four-and-a-half hours of action in the arena which hosted track and field during the 1960 Olympics will produce all the pressing answers.