In the unlikely guise of specialist running coach, Steve Hooker has emerged as a key factor in the success of rising Australian middle distance star Alex Rowe.
The 22-year-old biomedicine student equalled one of the most celebrated records in Australian athletics on Friday night, clocking one minute 44.40 seconds in the 800m at the Diamond League meet in Monte Carlo.
A desperate dip at the finish line ensured that Rowe matched the gold medal-winning time of Ralph Doubell set way back at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Rowe has taken giant strides forward in the last couple of years - and he says Hooker deserves plenty of the credit.
In the final stages of his celebrated career, the Olympic and world pole vault champion spent time in the US training under legendary coach Dan Pfaff, who convinced him that conventional wisdom about how best to run was wrong.
With the blessing of Rowe's coach Justin Rinaldi, Hooker has passed that knowledge on to Rowe.
"My whole running career I was taught to run on my toes," said Rowe.
"Something that Dan has taught Steve and Steve has taught me is that the cue to run on your toes is very contradictory.
"If you run on your toes basically what you're doing is cuing your foot to brake when you strike the ground.
"So you're landing, you're braking and decelerating, loading up your calves and achilles and then having to re-accelerate.
"The cue is to keep your toes up all the time so you land on the mid foot which means less deceleration forces and less energy loss."
It sounds counter-intuitive, but Rowe is an enthusiastic convert, even though Hooker has told him the process could take two years to fully bed down.
"Steve said at the time that you have to have a really open mind, let go of everything you've been taught before," he said.
"It's pretty easy to do that when you've got someone like Steve Hooker, an Olympic gold medallist, because immediately you've got that level of trust with what he's got to say."
Rowe is also modest enough to acknowledge that Doubell's run 46 years ago was superior to his effort on Friday night, coming as it did in an Olympic final.
But Rowe's was pretty special too.
He passed three runners in the final 300 metres to finish seventh in a sizzling race won by Nijel Amos of Botswana in 1:42.45.
Kenyan world record holder David Rudisha could manage no better than fifth in a drag race where the top five all broke 1:43.
Rowe will next square off against both African stars at the upcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
"I didn't see too much of the last 100 but with Rudisha, it shows that he is not invincible, that he can be beaten," said Rowe, who only earned a last-minute invitation to the Herculis meet after winning a race in Switzerland on Tuesday.
"I know he doesn't like the rain so if it is raining in Glasgow you never know.
"You can't have this invincible belief over these guys, they can be beaten and they are there to be beaten.
"I will definitely give it my best crack."
The only other Australian record still standing from the 1968 Olympics is Peter Norman's silver-medal effort of 20.06 seconds in the 200m final.
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