It was the men’s pole vaulters, prompted by the event’s effective Godfather, France’s London 2012 champion and former world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie, who staged the first, valiant, virtual competition in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the self-styled Ultimate Garden Clash.

The Three Musketeers of the event - Lavillenie, double world champion Sam Kendricks of the United States and Sweden’s Louisiana-based world record holder Mondo Duplantis - put on a carefully synchronised show from their own backyards that offered athletics followers around the world a powerful, if poignant, message of hope for the future.

The compadre spirit is not limited to pole vault, of course. Multi-eventers inhabit their own mutually supportive world. Javelin throwers seem to share that spirit.

But over recent years the level of co-operation within men’s pole vault in particular has been striking - without taking away from a fierce competitiveness in a period when the event has been thronged with different talents rising and falling.

When the Three Musketeers assembled at their press conference on the eve of the meeting, there was the usual feeling of solidarity and mutually shared humour about them. It felt more like interviewing three footballers from the same team than three individual athletes who happened to compete in the same event.

On this occasion, however, the usual bonhomie and equilibrium was thrown right out of kilter by the power of ambivalent emotions coursing through Kendricks, whose feelings of outrage at the way he had had to quarantine in an approved hotel for 14 days at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, missing his event, after testing positive for COVID-19 were contending against his strong, Christian instincts always to look on the positive side of life.

It was almost unbearable to witness what became akin to an inner dialogue.

The 28-year-old from Mississippi is one of the most durable competitors around, never one to write off, and that fierce competitiveness enabled him to retain his world title in Doha two years ago against the rising talent of Duplantis.

He is also, as of 2016, a first lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve.

This is a tough man. But even on him the experiences of Tokyo told profoundly.

He made it clear that he had trained for these Olympics - having taken bronze in Rio five years ago - as never before. But almost in the same breath he insisted, quite rightly, that there is more to life, and to athletics, than just the Olympic Games.

"I fight the battles ahead not the ones behind," he said. "If you stake your whole career on Olympics you are probably going to be sad…

"But I’m proud of my friends - Mondo, and my buddy Chris Nilsen got silver, got America on the podium.

"Tokyo sucked for me. But I didn’t start in sport just for the Olympics."

And yet - the thought of how his Olympic ambitions had vanished was something he could not dismiss.

"My circumstances were political," he said. "Everybody was ready to let me sit in a hotel and watch.

"My frustration died in the first day. I was ousted, in exile. It was like I was sick, dirty, in a holding cell. They stick you in there and say 'muddle through, kid'.

"I don’t want anybody to go through that - being stuck in a hole.

"I was yanked away from my dreams and I just had to deal with it. So now I have got nowhere to go but up. Because I went to the very bottom."

In an Instagram post Kendricks’ father, Scott, said: "Sam isn’t sick and we aren’t worried about him," adding that the testing system was very rigid with another polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test being allowed only six days later.

The post continued: "Sam is in the quarantine hotel where he hopes to at least work out in his room because the season isn’t nearly over! Life is full of tests and we will pass this one. God is so good and we always trust him. Love you Sam. See you soon."

Asked about how he had learned of his positive test, Kendricks, who never suffered any symptoms, added: "You wake up early in the morning. You go take another test, even though you have taken one the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that…

"Then you get a piece of paper that says, positive.

"And you are told to go to another isolation hotel, you don’t know anyone there, you don’t know the conditions when you arrive.

"You give yourself over to the team when you go do something like that [competing at the Olympics]. You never expect they would just give it up. 'Just don’t look at him while he’s there.' Put out a release that I was in hospital. And I’m perfectly healthy, ready to jump.

"I’ve got no options. But nobody else is going to stick me in a cell. I would never do that to anybody."

As Kendricks spoke, the faces of his compadres were sombre and respectful. This was serious stuff.

Thankfully the day afterwards, in an - also thankfully - virtually full Stade Charlety, Kendricks, who had finished second to fellow American Chris Nilsen on countback at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne two days earlier, clearing 5.82 mettres, was able to run and vault free once again, although on this occasion he had to settle for fourth place on 5.73m.

During the press conference the newly installed Olympic champion Duplantis, who had suffered a rare defeat in blustery conditions at the Stade de la Pontaise, explained how Lavillenie, once he was out of the running, had advised him on tactics and choice of poles in the absence of either of the Swede’s normal coaches - AKA his parents.

Particularly important to the Duplantis cause when it comes to technical matters is father Greg, who was himself a 5.80m vaulter.

While the advice didn’t work out in Lausanne, Paris was another proposition, and Duplantis won his event with a first-time clearance of 5.96m, added another first clearance at 6.01m, and then had three good pops at raising his world record to 6.19m.

Afterwards he explained: "When Renaud finished his competition I told him that it would be an honour if he could coach me. My dad is not here and I couldn’t find a better counsellor."

In terms of comradeship and respect, the arrangement has echoes of the conversation between Jesse Owens of the United States and home long jumper Luz Long during qualifying at the Berlin 1936 Olympics.

After two fouls, Owens, the world record-holder, was facing an early exit unless he could make his last effort tell. Long advised him to take off at a spot marked well before the board, reckoning he would still manage to secure the mark he needed - and Owens, who would go on to gold, duly did.

Some Olympic historians have since claimed that this was not actually true, and that the two athletes only became friends after that qualifying event. But friends they clearly were, and there are pictures to prove it as the walked away from the final arm-in-arm.

After the event, a virtually empty stadium echoed with the sounds of excitement as Duplantis held sway over a throng of thrilled youngsters crowding to get his autograph or have a picture taken with him.

He is one of the sport’s new pied pipers, and he is playing a beautiful tune.