The more Mack Horton and Sun Yang avoided contact - body, eye, mind - the more of a contact sport this became. Without touching each other, they might as well have been swimming in boxing gloves. It gave their contest an extra frisson, and Horton's win a fourth dimension, and day one of the swimming the image of an Australian team galvanised as it never was in London four years ago.
Dashing hither and thither - bare-chested but in his big glasses - to meet a suite of obligations post-race, Horton looked for all the world like Superman midway through his change; Clark Kent, but without the business suit. This day, argued to a hyperbolic nicety, he struck a blow for truth, justice and the WADA way. By the way, how bad were Lois Lane's eyes?
The women's 4x100 metres relay was also non-contact, the out-of-sight sort. The remarkable Campbell sisters brought it home so resoundingly that their confreres at the finish didn't even have to resort to the usual hugging and screaming and biting on knuckles for the last few strokes; a few claps and a trio of broad grins was enough.
By the time Cate touched the wall, Bronte had her victory speech half-written. If Horton reclaimed the 400 for Australia, the 4x100 girls so reinforced Australia's hold on that race that, at the next Olympics, it ought to be named after them.
What a difference an Olympiad makes. This Games began in earnest in mid-afternoon when Horton had the last spoken word, and the most damning, in a previously trite waterfight with China's Sun Yang, the champion of London and many races since, but also with a short drug suspension stamped into his passport.
Horton said he did not respect drug cheats. You could hear the slap of gauntlet on the ground in three continents. Horton said he had planned it this way. In London, the Australians had made it all about themselves. Here, Horton made it about his opponent. It was as subtle as a knot in a pair of Speedos.
Pre-race, hooded, swaddled and goggled, Horton and Yang would not have looked even sidelong at each other anyway; these are standard, quasi-pugilistic rites.
But Horton took a moment before mounting the blocks to splash water over himself, the way Yang had splashed him in a practice pool.
"Save you the bother," it seemed to say, though Horton averred there was nothing conscious about it. Nonetheless, there have been many baptisms less symbolic than this. It was another non-physical jostling of Yang.
The race was an epic. Side-by-side, you could sense Horton and Yang watching each other out of the corners of their goggles. Britain's James Guy made a break out wide, but they let him go; they knew their ratings, and his. Briefly, there was a chance to admire the grace of distance swimmers, slicing through the water rather than thrashing at it. Horton surged, but for a terrifying moment with about 20 metres to go, Yang looked about to fingertip him out.
Horton rallied. Coaches will break it down and scientists will dice it up, but it looked like one of those reaches into an unseen and unseeable place. Or perhaps it was as simple as Horton said it was: having talked the talk, he now had to walk the swim.
Now the rub-less rubbing up really began in earnest. The other swimmers made for Horton's lane, but not Yang. Their eyes never met, nor was a hand proffered. At last on the dais, they applauded each other. It wasn't warm, but this wasn't about temperature. Yang's glowering sense of insult was plain, and Horton wasn't about to fake bonhomie.
In 27 degrees of surface temperature, a new Cold War was upon us.
For the relay team, it was different: they had each other for bodily support, whatever the outcome, and no friction anyway. They enjoyed what Cate Campbell called a "quiet confidence", "one that doesn't need to be spoken".
Once Emma McKeon and Brittany Elmslie had swum the Campbells into the race, wild seahorses would not have budged them out of it. Cate streamed to the wall and they broke the world record so easily that you wondered if they were selective about when they chose to do it. Pan Pacs are all very nice, but strategically, it has to be the Olympics.
On the deck, it was hugs all round, 32 each for all 32 swimmers (and yes, some did hug themselves). On the podium, the Campbell sisters looked at each other as if to say: "Look at us, sis."
But Cate was just as pleased for Horton as for her sister and herself. "I think that Mack is the real hero of tonight," she said.
"He is such a young guy, and to hold his nerve and to conquer in the 400 in his first Olympic Games, I think everyone had a tear in their eye when they saw him win that medal."
In an affecting moment, Bronte reached out to adjust Cate's gold medal, which was hanging oddly from her collar. It was veritably a lovely touch.
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