Three hundred and twenty-eight other gold medals will be handed out at these Paris Games, and surely none will be won as dramatically as this. Tom Pidcock lost the race to a puncture, won it back, then lost it again to the determined Frenchman Victor Koretzky before pulling off a do-or-die overtake around a tree to defend his Olympic title.

It was a superhuman display of racing. On the third of eight 4.4km laps, Pidcock was forced to stand still for half a minute while a frazzled mechanic changed his punctured front tyre and rivals whizzed by. He lost 36 seconds in all but soon began picking them off, one by one. Koretzky had watched Pidcock’s race dismantle firsthand as he took the lead, so what must he have thought when he turned a hairpin four laps and 40 minutes later to see Pidcock reincarnated?

In the final throes they went wheel to wheel, and in a wooded section of the course with trees peppering the middle of the track, Pidcock threw everything at gold, diving down the inside lane and emerging at the next bend half a wheel in front. They came together and made contact, Koretzky’s left foot was briefly dislodged from his pedal, and Pidcock sped away to emotional glory.

He fell into the arms of his family waiting at the finish, as some in the disappointed French crowd booed him. They were understandably frustrated but Pidcock had done nothing wrong.

“I knew Victor was going to be strong,” he said afterwards. “Then the puncture happened. At that point, I just imagined when I did a little ride this morning that, when I punctured, I was just going to say ‘f*** f*** f*** three times, slowly, calmly, and then I’m just going to have to get on with it.

“Bruno [his mechanic] wasn’t ready in the pits but he did a fast change, and I knew at that point I had almost five laps, that’s almost 50 minutes, so I thought, anything’s possible.”

So Pidcock proved. He is a double Olympic champion aged 24 – he turns 25 on Tuesday – something only a handful of Britons have achieved. Adam Peaty was 25 when he defended his Olympic title; Andy Murray and Mo Farah were in their 30s. Pidcock’s name should be held in similar esteem.

The Yorkshireman is an underappreciated jewel of British sport, perhaps because mountain biking does not carry a mainstream following. Yet his talents are multi-disciplined, as a cyclo-cross world champion and the winner of the queen stage of a Tour de France. Here he was up against mountain bike specialists, but that road race training with Ineos Grenadiers has developed his engine to go with the sublime, natural feel that makes him one of the best bike handlers in the world.

He needed that engine to haul himself back to Koretzky, but the winning moment, sending his bike up the inside of the split track, was pure racing instinct.

“In the end I just had to go for a gap. Rubbing is racing, that’s what I’ve always done and the Olympics are no different. I’m sorry for [Koretzky], the support for him was incredible, but it’s the Olympics. You have to go all in.”

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