This was a 'boy to man' moment. Kurtis Marschall was brought along as the next big thing in athletics and so was given an armchair ride to listen and learn. It was the equivalent of the football coach 'getting games' into a young player.
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Marschall then made the pole vault final, dispatched a handful of credentialled rivals and was within a lycra-covered thigh of making it onto the podium.
He finished seventh in the world, clearing 5.65 metres and just missing at 5.75m - what would have been a new personal best - with his three attempts. The second was achingly close.
"If I cleared 5.75 it would have been sick but it's all right ??? coming seventh in the world is pretty up there," Marschall said.
"I am not just one of the participants anymore, I am not a spectator out there, I know I can mix it with the big dogs,"
Those big dogs were not that far ahead of him. Older and stronger athletes, they could get the extra couple of jumps in on the 20-year-old from Adelaide.
American Sam Hendricks won in the end with a jump of 5.95, ahead of Poland's Piotr Lisek, and former world and Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie, from France, who both cleared 5.89.
Perhaps Marschall lacked understanding of the bewitching arts of sport.
Frenchman Pierre-Ambroise Bosse is equal parts runner, gambler and magician. In the 800 metres, he surged to the lead with 200 to go and surprised even himself that no one passed him. Black magic was his only explanation.
"The others killed themselves and they were already dead in the last 100m. I was like a witch casting a spell on them," Bosse said, who won in a time of one minute 44.67 seconds.
"I am a gambler, I love going to the casino. And today I just gambled, I put everything on the red, even my last Euro. So hopefully, this is also for luck in love.
"I feel over the moon, I cannot describe my emotions ... I did not have any race plan, believe me. I just did it with feeling. I came to London and I was not in a very good shape. This is the best thing ever. I surprised myself, I surprised everybody.
"It felt like a nightmare as I was getting chased. It was a never-ending nightmare. I could not understand why nobody was going past me. Even when I crossed the line I could not believe it."
In contrast, South African star Wayde Van Niekerk required neither trickery nor surprise.
At least 30 athletes or team members of countries at the championships have been infected with the norovirus with some competitors forced to pull out of events. Athletes from five different countries - Botswana, Germany, Canada, Ireland and Puerto Rico - who were all staying at the Tower Hotel near Tower Bridge were among those to fall ill.
Botswana's Isaac Makwala, who was a strong medal chance, was one of those to get sick. He was given medical dispensation from the 200m heats on Monday when he vomited at the stadium medical.
Then he turned up to the stadium on Tuesday night for the 400m final saying he felt fine, but organisers blocked him at the gate for the warm-up track on medical grounds out of concern he might infect others.
What it meant was that Van Niekerk's strongest rival for a medal in the 400m was suddenly out of the race.
In Rio last year, from an outside lane, Van Niekerk ran a Bosse type race when he rolled the dice and ran hard from start to finish, unflagging. He won in record time.
In London, he ran with expectation and focus and ran the same race. He was never headed.
If you remove times and medals, Van Niekerk runs without distinction. He runs smoothly, like a well-trained schoolboy. It is not a nippy clip, a lope or a muscular thump up the track. He is efficient in style and result.
However, Australia's Ella Nelson could not parlay her Rio form into London. She was a whisker from an Olympic final last year but now she is a world away.
On a cool night in London, Nelson was slow from the blocks and didn't regain ground. She finished last in 24.02 seconds in her heat.
In Rio, she ran 22.50 but since then her form has been indifferent. She expressed disappointment after her race, offering oblique references to a difficult year off the track.
Youngster Riley Day, like Marschall, came here for the experience. Fresh from competing at the Commonwealth Youth games in the Bahamas she was called up late for London. She finished adrift in her heat in 23.77.
'My legs were just shaking, I was like 'am I actually out here?"' said the schoolgirl from the Queensland town of Beaudesert.
"I kept looking around. The time wasn't fantastic but I don't care. My main competition was the Commonwealth Youths.
"I was expecting to watch it at home so what more could I ask for?"
In the final of the javelin, Kelsey-Lee Roberts, 25, was eliminated after three throws. Her best of 60.76 metres was well short of her personal best of 64.38.
