On an evening when other, bigger name athletes were making their play for the plaudits few in a crowd of 41,500 even noticed it. But in its own right Ciaran McDonagh's achievement was special enough for the Irish in the Olympic Stadium.
After his well-documented injury problems of recent years, McDonagh, from Athboy, Co Meath, heralded a new era for Irish long jumping in becoming the first Irishman to clear eight feet.
Against all expectations, it moved him into fifth place in the list of qualifiers for the World Championship final here tomorrow. And suddenly, an event dominated by an Irishman, Peter O'Connor, at the start of the century is set to become fashionable again in one of its old power-bases.
McDonagh, 23, a member of the Fr Murphy's club who is coached by a Pole, Dr Zbigniew Orywal, has long been recognised as a special talent. And this was the night he chose to make his point to an international audience.
The man who only scraped into the Irish team after the official deadline for entries had expired got out to 7.91 metres with his first jump to take the lead in qualifying Group A. This was still four centimetres short of his national record, but with more and more attention being trained on him, he returned to break the sand at eight feet precisely on his second visit to the pit.
Only six of the 42 starters made the eight-foot mark and with his place in the final now firmly secured, McDonagh passed up the chance of a third jump to conserve his energy for the final.
"To jump 8 metres here in front of a crowd of 40,000 was just great," he said. "It hasn't sunk in yet but I'm sure it will before I come back to the stadium for the final."
James Nolan is through to the final of the men's 800 metres championship after qualifying as one of the fastest losers with a time of one minute 46.38 seconds. Nolan, who led for almost 600 metres, eventually tied up to finish fourth behind the Italian Andrea Longo.
Longo clipped him with his shoe at a vital stage of the second lap and it accounted in part for the Irishman's late collapse. "I lost my stride and it took me some time to find it again. But it's good to be looking forward to racing in the final."
Unfortunately there was no such reward for our other 800 metres runner, David Matthews, who after making almost all the running in his heat, ran out of steam over the last 120 metres and eventually finished seventh of eight in a time of 1:49.52 seconds.
Elaine Fitzgerald's reward for beating Sinead Delahunty en route to her first national title at Santry last month is a place in the preliminaries of the 1,500 metres championship today.
At 26, she is poised to make her entry into big time competition, determined to give it her best shot but realistic enough to sense that it will still scarcely be good enough to earn her a place in Sunday's final.
At the other end of the spectrum, Terry McHugh, 36 last week, will be the oldest of those taking part in the men's javelin. With the notable exception of the World Championships at Tokyo in 1991, McHugh has been in almost every Irish squad for the last 12 years but on this occasion only got in at the 11th hour.
The other Irish competitor in action today will be Gillian O'Sullivan. She takes her place on the start line for the 20 kilometres walk hoping to profit from the lessons of her first major championship appearance at Budapest last year.
