Paul O’Flynn gave the nation the collywobbles when he revealed that he had some worrying news from Tokyo in advance of the final event in the heptathlon.

Just when we thought all Kate O’Connor had to do in the 800m, to earn herself a medal of some colour or other, was to amble home, he told us she might have to do it on one leg – she had a knee injury.

The Cork crew on the couch turned ashen-faced, as did the nation. “It’s, it’s, it’s ... awful,” said Rob Heffernan, the fella praying that when Paul handed over to Greg Allen at the stadium, he’d reassure us that it was, in fact, fake news.

Instead, he confirmed that O’Connor had indeed picked up a knee strain in the long jump earlier in the day, Greg and his sidekick David Gillick sounding like men who would struggle to watch the 800m from anywhere other than from behind a cushion. No more than ourselves.

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Kate O’Connor dreaming bigger again after perfect season ends in Tokyo

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‘I gave it everything’: Cian McPhillips reflects on groundbreaking World Championships 800m runs

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The one slight relief was that O’Connor was able to beam broadly at the camera when it picked her out on the start line, so she looked considerably less stressed than the rest of us. But still, there were 800m to come.

How’d she do? She only went and beat her personal best and won herself a silver medal, leaving the rest of us wondering how she might have fared if she’d had two healthy knees and not one “bockety” one, as Greg put it.

“Would you believe it?! What was all the worry about?” he asked, David letting out a shriek of joy that suggested he had worried until O’Connor’s knee had safely crossed the line.

A day like no other, never before had we seen an Irish athlete deliver a multi-event display of this calibre at this level. True, there’s a certain greed to Kate O’Connor, choosing to be excellent at the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, javelin, long jump and 800m, making her the kind of girl most of us resented in school when we’d have settled for being half decent in one discipline. But we’ll forgive her, she did, after all, give us a very special Saturday.

She did, then, become just the sixth Irish athlete to win a medal at the World Championships, two-thirds of them sitting on the couch back in Montrose. “There’s a huge sense of relief,” said one of them, Sonia O’Sullivan, “there are some Traitors over there in Tokyo spreading rumours”.

Worried as they were, though, Sonia, Rob and Derval O’Rourke had remained Faithfuls ‘till the end, so impressed had they been by O’Connor, with her string of personal bests, they’d a notion she’d win herself a medal even if she had to hop through the 800m.

“I’ll never forget that feeling, it’s so, so special, it’s like you’re floating on air,” said Rob, the last of our World Championship medallists, before Saturday, when he won gold in the 50km race walk a whole 12 years ago.

But the stress of knee-gate? “I haven’t felt that much since the shoot-out in Italia 90,” he said.

“She probably won’t sleep for days, it’s like the world is perfect for her now.” And she will, he said, have a break now, probably a brief one, from that structured, intensive training regime. “Not that I was ever in jail, but it’s like someone being left out of prison,” he said.

David’s post-event chats with athletes and their mentors were, as ever, among the highlights of the week; the lad’s a pure natural, his catch-up with O’Connor and her Da among the best.

“There’ve been so many fantastic days, I don’t know where it’s going to stop,” said Michael. Medals this year at the European Indoor Championships, the World Indoor Championships, the World University Games and, now, the outdoor World Championships. Michael, never mind his daughter, would be forgiven for being dizzy from it all.

And Cian McPhillips threatened to make us dizzier still in the 800m final. “Could two buses come along at the same time?” asked Greg. They almost did, McPhillips having to settle for the dreaded fourth spot in the end after an epically excellent run.

“We’re disappointed for him because we’re after getting greedy now,” said Rob. “We haven’t won a medal in 12 years and now we want two in 20 minutes.”

True.