What caused the local hero to side-skip in delight along the newly blue track of the Stade Charlety, holding his head in disbelief, was the huge improvement of his shot put personal best from 16.51 to 17.08 metres.

It proved to be a profitable evening for Mayer. Competing in a triathlon event set up to showcase him and a number of other leading decathletes, he went on to win the long jump with 7.50m before breaking his 110m hurdles personal best of 13.60sec with victory in 13.55.

"Between the two PBs I got tonight, the shot put is the most amazing," Mayer said. "I've never been so happy with a performance. To be honest I have never known anyone in decathlon able to throw 17 metres. Now I've done it I am so happy I have no words."

So all is beautifully on track for the man who has taken his event onwards and upwards following the retirement of the great Ashton Eaton.

But as Mayer had explained on the eve of the competition, he has his eyes set on another, more taxing target beyond the Doha World Championships that start next month – namely convincing the organisers of next year's re-vamped Diamond League programme to include triathlons for multi-eventers as part of the programme, putting them on a par with all the track and field specialists.

Mayer revealed in his pre-meeting press conference that he aimed to speak to the Diamond League organisers.

"This is a very important goal," he said, citing the long jump at the previous Diamond League meeting in Birmingham – where world and Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam won in a Belgian record of 6.86m and Britain's world silver medallist Katerina Johnson-Thompson was joint second, a centimetre behind – as an example of the entertainment such contests could bring.

"If this works we want to be treated as normal athletes, like Diamond League athletes who have fees and prize money and appearance money.

"When international multi-event athletes from  abroad – from China or the United States – come to compete, they come as volunteers, for nothing. It will be very interesting to convince the Diamond League organisers to put this on the same scale and have the same programme in terms of fees as other athletes.

"I get something to come to Paris, for instance, but no prize money for a win, as far as I know.

"But this is not to gain money, it is to build something that is not only given one year and then stopped because they say it doesn't work, but that will be something that will stay for later generations of talented multi-athletes."

Earlier that morning I had spoken in the lobby of the Paris meeting hotel to Kevin's brother Thomas, who acts for the world champion in a managerial capacity, and he had offered some background to Mayer's communal ambitions.

"When you see competitions between multi-event athletes like the one at Birmingham between Thiam and Johnson-Thompson in the long jump, it creates a lot of noise," he said. "We want to create more of that. 

"At the moment there isn't an opportunity for most decathletes or heptathletes to compete in Diamond League meetings, even though they have such talent. So we hope to discuss this."

Mayer clarified his position later in the day. "I haven't spoken to anyone yet, but I wanted a good moment to do it and it happened in Birmingham," he said. "I don't want to be the only one asking – I want it to be a collective request from multi-athletes.

"When you are talking about triathlons in the Diamond League – usually we don't do many decathlons every year. 

"We work in different competitions to improve every event, but most of the time it is in small competitions.

"Why I'm asking this is because we would like to have the same atmosphere as in major championships. If we are together with other athletes, doing the same thing, working on our event in the same atmosphere, then those are the best conditions for improvements."

What are Mayer's chances? Well his personal stock is high, and could be higher still following Doha if he can avoid the calamity that befell him at last year's European Athletics Championships, where his progress towards gold was suddenly ended by failure to record a mark in any one of his three long jumps.

And if you want to talk about change in the Diamond League, now is the time, given that the IAAF have announced their intention of re-shaping, albeit by trimming, the programme.

In the triathlon's favour is the fact that it is a flexible proposition – ten events to choose from for the men, seven for the women – that could be adapted to offer home athletes showcasing opportunities in their stronger disciplines.

The other obvious factor is that it would be a regular means of offering athletics followers a better view of what many would argue are the finest athletes of their generation – such as Mayer, Thiam and Johnson-Thompson. Why should their excellence be left out in the cold?