The Ice hockey tournament was based on a league format, although most fans had already decided who they expected to win before the first match was played. The Soviet Union had won the world championships of 1965, 1966 and 1967 and had not lost an international match for five years. They also boasted a brilliant player who came to Grenoble in wonderful form – Anatoli Firsov, perhaps the finest ice hockey player in Russian history.

It was no surprise that athletes from Norway and the Soviet Union were on top in the biathlon competitions, but there was a significant new rule – missing a target would now incur an athlete a one-minute penalty. It was a ruling that was to have a big impact on the competition in Grenoble.

The men’s epee had a dramatic final between Grigory Kriss, of the Soviet Union, and Great Britain’s Henry Hoskyns, two athletes whose paths to the Olympic Games were a complete contrast.

The history of the men’s foil event suggested that the winner would come from France or Italy, perhaps Hungary or the Soviet Union. Few would have suggested that it would be the Polish flag that would be hoisted to celebrate the gold medal winner.

The greatest challenge faced by Olympic competitors often comes from within their own minds. Some are aspiring to make their name, some to live up to great form, and some are already burdened by the knowledge of what it needs to take victory – and they want to repeat that feeling.

Giuseppe Delfino had learnt to fence while working in the famous FIAT car factory in Turin, but the sport became much more than a hobby. Over the course of a sparkling career, he won six Olympic medals, four of them gold. However, the one that he won in Rome marked the pinnacle of his achievements.

It did not need a fortune teller to predict the favourites for gold in the rowing eights. The USA had won the title at the previous eight editions of the Games; it was an event that the Americans placed great importance on, and a ninth consecutive crown was almost regarded as inevitability.