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Elana Meyer of South Africa and Deratu Tulu of Ethiopia at Barcelona - Source: Getty Images -
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People ask me sometimes what was the greatest Olympic event I've ever seen?
To give an answer isn't easy. In my memory banks, there are super highlights from every Games I've been lucky enough to attend. No doubt, more will unfold in a few days time when I attend my ninth summer Olympic Games in London.
I commentated on TV1 when John Walker won his 1500m gold medal at Montreal in 1976. That was a very proud experience.
It was slim pickings for 32 years, but I commentated only my second NZ gold medal when Valerie Vili (now Adams) won so superbly in the women's shot put at Beijing.
But when I think of what made me feel strongest and most emotional about all the good that the Olympic Games should stand for, my mind always leaps to Barcelona 1992 and the first-ever Olympic women's 10,000m final.
That race was a fantastic half hour - nothing more, nothing less. If you were there and you have in your personality even the teeniest amount of emotion, you might've been like me, choking back the tears.
The race was held on a very still evening and I remember they'd just switched the stadium lights on. There were 90,000 in the grandstands and I remember sitting there, and like a lot of people, we didn't know what to expect. Women were still breaking in at a world level over the 10,000m distance.
As soon as the gun went, two runners in particular caught my eye. They were always at the front of the race or nearby, and we were all drawn to them - one was as black-skinned as the other was light-skinned.
At about halfway, the two slim women broke away from the rest of the field. Then, for lap after lap, Elana Meyer of South Africa and Deratu Tulu of Ethiopia circled the track together, I think, for 11 laps in a row.
Sometimes they were seen talking to each other and smiling. They were shoulder to shoulder and always seemed to be pulling further away from the others in the race.
The whole crowd laughed at the infectious and friendly mood of what was unfolding.
It wasn't until the last lap (of 25) that Tulu decided she alone must go for gold. She sprinted hard and Meyer couldn't stay with the new pace.
When Tulu seemed to be still increasing, she reached the home stretch, and ran on to wild and warm applause to become the first black African woman to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games.
But Tulu didn't then race off on a victory lap. She waited on the finish line to greet her running mate, as she came home in second place. That, in itself, was a lovely - and quite rare - thing to do.
The poignancy of the moment became more meaningful when the two runners embraced on the finish line. The cameras clicked and everyone knew a pic of a black woman hugging a white woman at the Olympic Games would be a worldwide winning shot.
But the moment didn't end. When Tulu set off on her victory lap, which she was entitled to do, with grand gestures that we in the stands could all see, she pointedly invited Meyer to jog with her.
So, hand in hand, the two set off.
Along the way they stopped and collected the flags of their own country from fans in the crowd, but then they even swapped the flags with each other.
So the South African Meyer ran and waved with the Ethiopian flag draped on her shoulders, while Deratu Tulu did the same with the new flag of the Rainbow nation of South Africa, 1992.
It'd be easy to say there wasn't a dry eye in the house that night in Barcelona, but it was certainly an expression of the best that the Olympics ought to represent at every Games.
South Africa only returned to the Olympics that year after being banned since 1968 for their Government's apartheid policies, so this was a wonderful welcome back for them.
I was so glad to be there to see this great Olympic race, involving so much poignancy. I've never forgotten the chill and thrill of watching it unfold in the best expression of what the world could and should be every day.