Twenty years on, Austin is still the only American High Jump World champion, a surprising quirk of world athletics that Williams intends to put right when theIAAF World Championships pitch up in another part of southeast Asia later this month (Daegu, Korea 27 Aug to 4 Sep).

Despite losing his last pre-Daegu competition narrowly to Russia’s Andrey Silnov in London, the 27-year-old from Modesto, California, is increasingly confident that he can take the high jump crown for the USA for the first time for two decades.

“I will be the favourite and I like that,” he says. “I’ve never got a medal but I’ve been very consistent this year, and if I can just do what I have done every meet I feel my chances are very good.”