Start with a number: 21, the age of Ash Moloney.
Decathletes aren't supposed to make Olympic finals so young.
Doesn't matter. He did.
In the last event, he needed to run a good time in the 1,500 metres to hold on to third place.
With the face of Val Kilmer and body of Ivan Drago, he looked capable of anything.
But the young man was tired.
He'd run 100m in 10.34 seconds, long jumped 7.64m, put the shot 14.49m, high jumped 2.11m, run 400m in 46.29, hurdled 110m in 14.08, hurled the discus 44.38m, pole-vaulted 5.00m, and thrown a javelin 57.12m.
C'mon. One last race.
To win bronze, Moloney needed to be within 10 seconds of the American Garrett Scantling at the end of three and three-quarter laps of the Tokyo track.
One slow move and the medal would be gone.
Luckily, fellow Australian decathlete Cedric Dubler was still in the competition, albeit injured and similarly exhausted.
Refusing to quit, Dubler strapped his hamstring and decided to give his remaining effort to his training partner.
In short, Dubler ran in front of his countryman, as if he were towing him.
Moloney got no physical benefit from this, but he could ignore his pain by concentrating on his friend's presence.
They did this until it was time for Moloney to sprint past Dubler to the finish line.
Dubler started roaring. Moloney heard him and took off; he looked wild and free.
Where did this moment come from?
Such acts of selfless care among athletes are celebrated at the Olympics, but they are cultivated elsewhere. In this case, the University of Queensland Athletics Club.
For the past five years, Dubler and Moloney have been training together under the nation's leading multi-event coach, Eric Brown.
"Cedric was the master and Ash was the apprentice," Brown said.
"The tide sort of changed a couple of years ago once Ash came back from winning the world juniors.
"He's just accelerated off the planet. And Cedric's sort of accepted that and took on more of a mentor role. [But] you've gotta realise Cedric in his own right qualified with a big score for the Olympics."
Brown reckoned Dubler would've finished in the top six in Tokyo if he didn't injure his leg three weeks before competition.
It was amazing he even competed.
"He's always been a tough competitor," the coach said.
"He knows how to perform. He's always been that way. Decathletes are all tough as nails. I'm pretty rough on them."
Dubler had met Brown when he was a 15-year-old high jumping prospect.
Brown told him he had the potential to be Australia's best decathlete. He was right: six years later Dubler competed at the Rio Olympics.
Then another kid showed up wanting high jump coaching.
It was Ashley Moloney.
On a Facebook video produced by his local government, Logan City Council, Moloney explained hard work took him "from not even making Regents Park school finals" to winning district athletics in the space of a year.
"When he came to me he was just a gangly, shy 15-year-old," Brown said.
"When you're coaching for a lot of years, you know who's good and who's not."
Moloney's first jump for Brown was surprisingly good.
"I just thought 'my goodness, how much ping has he got off the ground'. I just saw the potential," Brown said.
Moloney's first decathlon was in Townsville. He had all the athleticism but no specific skills.
At first try, he failed to run the entire 1,500m.
"It was the funniest thing you've even seen," Brown said.
"He actually stopped a lap before [the end] thinking he'd done 1,500m. He stopped, started to walk, and had to re-run the next lap."
Moloney grew and improved quickly.
Within three months he was jumping 30 centimetres higher; he also went on to become a national-standard triple jumper; and he became very fast.
"When you add speed with height and strength … he was physically naturally strong as well. He just looked an animal right from the word go. Just gifted, genetically gifted," Brown said.
At 18, he was crowned junior world champion in decathlon.
Winning Australia's first decathlon medal
Brown, who's been successfully coaching elite athletes for 40 years, did not make the trip to Tokyo.
Instead, he watched the competition on television and sent video and text messages through to Dubler and Moloney.
The Aussies were following their coach's instructions in the stadium on Thursday night.
"I said to Ash, 'Run the first lap at your own speed and then Cedric will just drop in and pull you through', which is exactly what he did," Brown said.
"Cedric's a 4:30 [top-ranked] 1,500m runner so he can do a 72-second 400m pace any day.
"He's a very good judge of pace. He knows exactly how fast he's running. So it was just a matter of going out in front of him [Moloney], letting him settle into his own rhythm and then sort of sit beside him and help him out.
"I was a bit worried about Ash up the back straight, but Cedric gave him a fair mouthful I think.
"He was screaming as loud as he can," Moloney told Channel Seven.
Brown wasn't surprised to witness such boisterous encouragement. He'd seen it at training.
"They all get stuck into each other," he said.
"They're always pushing each other, and that's why they're so good."
Gold medallist Canadian Damian Warner did a similar thing for his countryman, Pierce LePage, helping his friend run a personal best time.
Decathletes are all generous like that.
"Multi-events is a different culture to individual sports," Brown said.
"Any of these world-class decathletes, they're all friends."
Training is so hard for decathlon and heptathlon, and there are relatively few competitions.
There isn't much glory in it but the reward is enormous satisfaction in being able to do something few people in the world can do.
"They know how hard it is to get there and how hard it is to stay there and how many injuries you get," Brown said.
"They all clap each other when they perform and everybody helps everybody. There's no egos or selfishness – they're all terrific people.
"Just a totally different culture that evolves within itself."
The future for Moloney
"Eric Brown is a one-of-a-kind coach," Moloney told Channel Seven after his history-making performance.
"A beautiful man. He pretty much raised me on the track, took me in while I was young and took Cedric in as a young pup as well and built us to Olympic levels."
"This would mean the world to him," Dubler added.
"Rio was when he had his first Olympian in myself and Caitlin Jones [400m runner] and now he's got an Olympic medallist here.
"The progression for him over the last couple of years is mind-blowing, and full credit to him."
Winning an Olympic medal at 21 places enormous expectation on Ash Moloney.
Athletically, he's nowhere near his potential.
Gold medallist Warner, at 32, is performing better than ever.
If he doesn't get badly injured, Moloney is likely to be dominant for at least another decade.
"He'll be a world record holder. He will smash it to smithereens. He is so good this kid; he's got so much more [improvement] to go with these events.
"Look at the fact that at the same age he is now, he's 500 points better than [Tokyo silver medallist] Kevin Mayer, who's the world record holder.
"By next year, it'll be absolutely game on. I think he'll be close to world champion."
Brown thinks Dubler can compete in another two Olympics, and even if he doesn't win a medal he'll be remembered by all Australian sports lovers for helping Moloney win bronze.
"He's probably more famous than Ash at the moment," Brown said.
Not for long.
Let's finish with a number: 2032, the year of Ash Moloney's home Olympics.
With fellow Queenslander Dubler in the stadium, still shouting for his mate to get a move on.
