At just before noon on this opening morning of the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam, a triple gold medallist found herself transported back in time. She stood in her lane, she sat on her block number, she went through some pre-race routines and then, she clenched her right fist.
In that one second, that one movement, Susanna Kallur indicated that nothing will ever beat her.
It was a magic moment in the re-birth of the Swedish 100m hurdler, because after all the pain, all the tears and all the hope, she had triumphed over adversity. Almost eight years after crashing out of the Beijing Olympics, she had finally returned to a major championship.
When the gun fired, it was as though she had never been away. Kallur was out of her blocks the quickest and she led all the way in this race four of the pre-qualifying heats, winning in 13.01 from Belarusian Elvira Herman (13.03) and progressing as the second best of them all.
'Before the race, it was just like it used to be,' said Kallur, 35. 'How do I feel? It feels like I was on auto-pilot, just coming here to the warm-up area and everything happening like it was.
'If I leave the championships with the feeling that I have left every drop of me on the track, then I will be happy. I was just hoping to be back.'
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Next month, on 18 August, will mark eight years since Kallur hit a hurdle in the Olympic semi-final and she could never have imagined that she would not return to a major championship in all that time.
She was the European 100m hurdles champion from Gothenburg, a success achieved in such glorious fashion in front of her own crowd, and had won gold in the 60m hurdles in the two European Athletics Indoor Championships leading up to Beijing.
But what followed was a story of such pain on the track that it was no wonder she was in such demand yesterday. It took 40 minutes for Kallur to make her way through the series of interviews that followed after her race, and she seemed to relish every chance to talk, such was her delight to be back.
Next up on track: the heats of the 100m hurdles and the much-awaited return of Susanna Kallur.#ECH2016 pic.twitter.com/idMh3QnL8t
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) July 6, 2016
After injury in 2009, Kallur had been forced to miss the London Olympics when a hole in her right shin refused to heal and it was looking like her career may be coming to an end.
But she never gave in. In 2013, she gave birth to her daughter Majken and last month she returned to competitive action in Stockholm.
Today, she ran with a strapping on her right leg and as she said: 'It's a precaution because my skin is so thin.'
Which, of course, is the great irony in this uplifting story.
On that part of her body, maybe, her skin is thin but not everywhere else. There can hardly be a tougher, more thick-skinned athlete in the sport, a sprinter who refused to give in and is now in the semi-finals of the European Athletics Championships, a place she could only dream about.