Italy’s two shock 100m and high jump Olympic champions joked about both winning gold medals over a late-night PlayStation session hours before their victories, but decided the idea was “too crazy”. The story was revealed by the Olympic 100m champion Marcell Jacobs after he stormed to 100m victory in 9.80 seconds.

Immediately after the race Jacobs howled with joy and hugged his compatriot Gianmarco Tamberi, who just five minutes earlier had also won a high jump gold medal by clearing 2.37m, sharing first place with Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim. Tamberi said: “We played PlayStation – Formula One and NBA. In NBA I destroyed him! But he is a good friend and we just relaxed. When you are preparing for a big event, it can’t just be Netflix to relax.”