In one sense, Ollie Hoare's historic victory in the Commonwealth Games 1500m was all about the man himself.
It was Hoare who found a way to bounce back from the crushing disappointment of missing the world championships final last month.
It was Hoare who vowed to run differently in Birmingham and was as good as his word.
It was Hoare who ran the perfect tactical race, sitting two or three off the lead without ever letting early pacesetter Abel Kipsang get too far away.
And it was Hoare who ran a last 100 metres for the ages, storming home three wide in the final straight and lunging at the line to finish nine hundredths of a second ahead of flagging Kenyan Timothy Cheruiyot, the 2019 world champion.
But in another sense, it was about much more than the 25-year-old from the southern Sydney suburb of Caringbah, who cut his teeth running for Trinity Grammar and then the University of Wisconsin on the cut-throat NCAA circuit.
There was his father Greg, a beach runner for North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, who first got Hoare into athletics.
Greg Hoare worshipped the legendary Herb Elliott, until Saturday the only Australian to win a Commonwealth 1500m or mile title.
There was his extended family, including the brother who made a motza backing him at juicy odds.
There was Stewart McSweyn, who missed Saturday's final due to illness but who has long been an inspiration for Hoare.
And there was his grandfather, Sergeant Fred Hoare, a WWII veteran who passed away last week.
"I dedicate that race to him - he was a big inspiration to me and my dad," said Hoare.
"He always had the same stopwatch, it was about 100 years old and he would trust the timer, he would only go off the stopwatch, my PBs were all on his stopwatch.
"He was a great lover of the sport, a lover of Herb Elliott, (Steve) Moneghetti, (Robert) de Castella.
"He was the reason my dad loves the sport, the reason why I love the sport.
"After (I had) such a disappointing world championships, he passed away at 96.
"It kind of hit me, I hadn't been home and was unable to attend his funeral two days ago.
"He's up there having a glass of red wine, laughing his arse off and he'd be saying, 'I knew you could do it mate but unfortunately I wasn't around to see it'."
Hoare's victory was a triumph of self-belief against a field that would not have looked out of place in an Olympics or world championships final, save for the great Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
He became only the second Australian man in 32 years to win a Commonwealth track final, joining John Steffensen, who grabbed the 400m gold in Melbourne in 2006.
"To have a low like that at a major championship and come back here and win it for Australia in an event like this, and how deep this field is, shows me that I'm not (defined by) one race as an athlete - that I'm hopefully going to have a legacy of bad races and good races," he said.
"But hopefully I'll be much more consistent now that I've learned how to cope in those situations."
And if he can attract more kids into running, then so much the better.
"That's what I want to portray - believe in yourself, back yourself," said Hoare.
"Just because you are from Australia, it doesn't mean you can't win a 1500m championship.
"Somebody just did it and they are probably very similar to you, similar talent, persistent, wants it more and gets after it."
Words that would have been music to the ears of his grandad.
