He was a teenager from the Solomon Islands whom just about no one inside Hampden Park had heard of before he took to the track in the 5,000 metres final at the Commonwealth Games, but Rosefelo Siosi left it a hero.
He also left some time after the 23 other athletes in the race had finished, but did so with a new national record to his name and the cheers of a packed crowd still ringing in his ears.
His homeland in Oceania is more than 9,000 miles away, but on Sunday he was an honorary Scot.
Lapped three times, the 17-year-old was roared on down the home straight and, arms and legs still manfully pumping, he crossed the line in 16 minutes 55.33 seconds.
He was more than one-and-a-half minutes behind the second-last finisher and more than three-and-a-half adrift of winner Caleb Mwangangi Ndiku with his dyed gold hair.
The Kenyan had won the title, but Siosi had won the crowd.
Siosi thanked the Scottish public for getting behind him and spurring him on when he felt like quitting.
"I feel so tired," he said. "It was too cold for me. It was difficult to finish the race. I almost gave up, but the crowd were shouting, 'Go! Go!', so I had to finish the race.
"I'm privileged to compete against the fastest people in the world.
"The boys who train in Kenya train at altitude, whereas I just train at home - no coaches, just on my own. I was lucky to compete. They encouraged me really well."
The teenager will use the experience gained in Glasgow as motivation to step up his training ahead of the Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea next year and the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast.
"I will go back and train harder for the next Commonwealth Games," Siosi added. "This is my starting point for the Pacific Games. I will go for gold in the Pacific Games."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article