The memories come flooding back at the realisation that the photograph on the wall in my office will be 30 years old this weekend.

It was taken somewhere around the mid-point of the 1976 Olympic marathon, and Billy Rodgers is leading the pack through the rain-soaked streets of Montreal, with a collection of rivals that includes Waldemar Cierpinski, Frank Shorter, and Lasse Viren seemingly perched on his shoulder.

Boston Billy had come out of nowhere to win the Boston marathon the year before and since he was considered the pre-race favourite, the marathon was my particular assignment that weekend.

Hampered by an injury to his right foot, Rodgers hit the wall shortly after the photo was snapped, and by the time he reached Stade Olympique an hour later had faded to 40th place, so the story I'd travelled all the way to Montreal to write turned out to be not much of a story at all.

On the other hand, I don't think any of us covering the Games in Canada 30 years ago anticipated the events of that week would directly precipitate a veritable renaissance in a sport badly in need of one.

In 1976 Muhammad Ali was still the face of boxing, but, having regained his heavyweight title from George Foreman less than two years earlier, Ali was in the midst of his own Bum of the Month agenda that produced title defences against Richard Dunn, Jimmy Young, and Jean-Pierre ("The Lion of Flanders") Coopman earlier that year.

I wasn't in Montreal to cover the boxing, but I do have two particular recollections of that year's Olympic tournament. The first was arriving at my hotel just in time to switch on the television and see Teofilo Stevenson absolutely pole-axe John Tate in the heavyweight semi-final.

The other came the next afternoon when we travelled over to the Athletes' Village to rendezvous with Rodgers and ran into Leon Spinks waiting outside the gate. At this early stage of his life Leon had yet to establish his credentials as a full-fledged buffoon, and not only did he have his teeth in, but cut a truly dashing figure in his Marine Corps dress uniform. It made for a sight nearly as startling in 1976 as it would today.

Five American boxers won gold medals that weekend, and all five of them - Leon and his brother Michael Spinks, Sugar Ray Leonard, Howard Davis Jr, and Leo Randolph - would go on to become world champions in the professional ranks. It was an unanticipated record of success that would immediately produce a feeding frenzy among promoters, and directly precipitate a revival of boxing interest among the television networks and the public at large that would endure throughout the decade to come.

Leonard, who hadn't even anticipated turning pro (he had planned on enrolling at the University of Maryland that September) would receive a then unheard-of $40,000 for his first professional fight. Eighteen months later, in his eighth professional fight, Leon Spinks would win a split decision over Ali to briefly reign as heavyweight champion. And in 1985 and '86, brother Michael would win back-to-back decisions over previously unbeaten Larry Holmes.

Among the promoters in attendance at Montreal that weekend was Bob Arum, who had begun his personal preparations for the anticipated departure of Ali by allying himself with the star-crossed Tate. "We knew going in that it was a very good team," Arum recalled to Michael (Wolf Man) Katz a couple of days ago, "John Tate had a chance to be a special heavyweight, there were the Spinks brothers - Leon seemed something special, Michael a little less, but it worked out the opposite. And Howard Davis Jr was sensational." Leonard, on the other hand, remembered Arum, "barely made the team".

Michael Spinks retired after his 1988 loss to Mike Tyson, but Leon, Leonard, and Davis all fought well into the mid-1990s. The fifth American gold medallist that year, Leo Randolph, would briefly own the WBA junior featherweight title, but retired after a 1980 loss to Sergio Palma.

The 1976 Games were the first of three consecutive Olympiads to be marred by significant boycotts, and while it is unlikely that the absence of the Africans significantly altered the outcome of the boxing events that year, it certainly influenced athletics.

Perhaps the most hotly-anticipated event of that Olympics had loomed in the impending 1,500 metre confrontation between Filbert Bayi, and his successor as world-record holder, New Zealand's John Walker.

When boycott became official, the Tanzanians sadly packed their bags and went home, leaving the principal challenge to Walker to the new kid on the block, Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan, who had set a new European record for the mile in Kingston the previous year.

The 1,500 final was run in the stadium that Sunday afternoon, while the marathon was still in progress outside, and, having just spent the past several months collaborating on the forthcoming book Chairman of the Boards with Coghlan, the events of that day seem even fresher in memory.

"From the time I began running in America I'd never looked a single day beyond the 31st of July, 1976," recalled Coghlan of that fateful day.

Fate had managed to separate Coghlan and Walker as both one their preliminary heats and semi-finals. Coghlan had planned to sit on Walker's shoulder, steeling himself for his already legendary kick over the final furlong, but then, on the morning of the final, the Irishman had received a telephone call from his legendary Villanova coach, Jumbo Elliott, reminding him of the danger posed by several fast half-milers in the field.

"Be careful," Jumbo reminded him. "Don't let the pace be too slow."

So of course when Dave Moorcroft took the field through 400 metres in a dawdling 62.8, Jumbo's warning flashed through Coghlan's mind, and he shot from the back of the pack to the front. And when he looked behind him, Walker was right on his tail. "I realised," said Coghlan, "that I might already have set myself up to be the sacrificial lamb."

Walker surged into the lead with 300 metres to go, followed in short order by Belgium's Ivo Van Damme. Coghlan held off a challenge from American Rick Wolhuter, but in doing so created a gap on the inside lane and was caught just before the finish line by the German Paul Wellman for the bronze medal.

Three-tenths of a second separated first from fourth, but the first three finishers received Olympic medals. Eamonn Coghlan got a certificate saying that he had competed.

"At that moment it seemed as if the world had ended for me," Coghlan recalled three decades later. "I threw myself down on the infield of the track and lay there sobbing."

Five months later Van Damme would be dead, killed in a car crash in the south of France. Wellman never beat Coghlan again.

Coghlan and Walker would engage in a spirited rivalry for the next several years, with neither man holding a clear advantage, but on that weekend 30 years ago, Walker left Montreal not only the Olympic gold medallist, but with a financial future nearly as promising as Sugar Ray Leonard's.

Two days after his triumph in Montreal, in fact, the late Tom Cryan reported that Walker had been signed to a lucrative contract representing a Scottish distillery.

"Only half marks," noted The Squire, "for guessing which one."