THEY were the two ends of the golden thread that illuminated London 2012.
The longest distance on the track and the shortest.
One a child born in Somalia, who became a proud Brit and proud Gooner.
His fellow superstar the fastest man on the planet and symbol of Jamaica.
Now, in Rio, Mo Farah and Usain Bolt have the chance not only to reassert their achievements, their calm certainty, poise and glory — but also to make themselves into indisputable, dominant legends.
The Olympics have always been about heroes, even if Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Games, claimed: “It is not about the winning, but the taking part”.
In truth, it has always been about the winning.
You would not have seen thousands up and down the land doing the Mobot or the Lightning Bolt if the duo had picked up a couple of silvers each. Farah’s epic 10,000metre run set the seal on Super Saturday.
He followed it up a week later in the 5,000m.
Just 24 hours after Farah’s victory lap, Bolt stepped up.
He had set world records in the 100m and 200m in Beijing and thousands flooded into the stadium hoping for more.
They had to settle for ‘just’ an Olympic record over the shorter distance, before he became the first man to successfully defend both titles four days later.
Stunning, unforgettable moments. Instant folklore.
The memories burn most brightly of those who turned the Games into monuments to their own brilliance.
JESSE OWENS, dismantling Hitler’s racial theories in Berlin in 1936. Four great golds. Aryan supremacy? That toxic idea did not last 100 hours, let alone 1,000 years.
JIM THORPE, the Superman of the pre-First World War era, who won two multi-discipline golds in Stockholm but lost the medals until long after his death because he had committed the ‘offence’ of playing semi-pro baseball.
PAAVO NURMI, the original Flying Finn, followed up three long-distance golds in 1920 by taking the 1500m and 5,000m crowns in the space of two hours on the same day in 1924.
He also won the 3,000m team event and two cross-country events to become the first athlete to win five golds in a single games.
And he won the 10,000m title in 1928.
EMIL ZATOPEK, fated to suffer personal humiliation in the Prague Spring in 1968, was stunning as he dominated the long-distance events in London 1948 and Helsinki 1952.
And CARL LEWIS. The face of Los Angeles in 1984, who was there again — even if he was not the fastest man on earth — at Seoul in 1988.
Yes, Lewis was the first man to retain his 100m crown. Jamaican Bolt “merely” the second. But unlike Bolt, Lewis did not cross the line first in Seoul.
Nobody wants to remember Ben Johnson and the drug shadow that was cast upon so many of that eight-man field.
Now Bolt looks to make it three doubles and Farah his second, extending their unbeaten championship streaks.
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Rio may be the final stage for both and they know it.
That will be their driver, the catalyst, their inspiration.
When the history books are written in 100 years’ time, Bolt and Farah want their names indelibly inked, bold and deep.
What greater glory could any sportsman want?
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