It came shortly after Dalilah Muhammad had improved her world 400 metres hurdles record to 52.16sec

It was a night when, after the earlier tales of empty seats and doping case reverberations, all the desired elements of top event came together.

There was also the spectacle of Kenya’s indefatigable defending and Olympic 3,000m steeplechase champion Conseslus Kipruto retaining his title, against all odds, by one-hundredth of a second.

Barshim was always billed as the poster boy for these Championships, but ruptured ankle ligaments ruined his competition last year and the man who stands second on all-time list with 2.43 metres had arrived for the big home event having competed only three times this year, with a best clearance of 2.27m.

With two Authorised Neutral Athletes, Mikhail Akimenko and Ivan Ilyuk, accompanying his soaring and seamless progress through the heights, Barshim hit a pinch point at 2.33m, which he cleared - to ear-buzzing general approval - at his third and final attempt – before making 2.35m at his first attempt.

His two remaining rivals responded with their own first-time clearances at 2.35m to send the competition spiralling up to 2.37m. 

Which Barshim cleared first time again.

With that effort the gold was retained. 

Neither of his opponents looked remotely like matching him, and Akimenko took silver on countback, with Maksim Nedasekau of Belarus finishing fourth on 2.33m.

Muhammad had no option but to set a new world mark if she wanted to withstand the driving finish of her 20-year-old US rival Sydney McLaughlin.

The latter was rewarded with silver in 52.23 - just three hundredths of a second off Muhammad’s original record of 52.20 - after a performance that hinted at riches to come in future years.

Like Barshim, Kipruto was returning after serious injury - in his case one which had delayed his season’s debut until the end of August, when he had finished fifth at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Paris.

At the end of a pulverising final lap Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali had settled for bronze, which he duly collected, and the gold was destined either for Ethiopia’s leader down the straight, Lamecha Girma, or the little figure dogging his steps.

As he staggered on landing after the final barrier, it seemed that Kipruto had taken on too much this time. 

But he stirred himself for one more desperate drive, and while he appeared to cross the line exactly level with the Ethiopian, one somehow knew that he would have the edge.

He did - champion by one-hundredth of a second in 8min 01.35sec - the fastest time run this year.

In a men’s 400m final rendered intriguingly open by the power failure suffered in the semi-finals by event favourite Michael Norman, Steven Gardiner came home to claim gold emphatically in a Bahamas record of 43.48 ahead of Colombia’s fast-finishing Anthony Zambrano, who earned silver in a South American record of 44.15.

America's Fred Kerley slipped from silver to bronze in the final metres, clocking 44.17.

In the women’s discus final there was an expected triumph for the Cuban who has ruled the circle this season Yaime Perez. 

The reigning IAAF Diamond League champion responded in champion fashion after her compatriot Denia Caballero had seized the lead off her with a fourth round effort of 68.44m before Perez threw 69.17m in the next round. 

Japan completed a glorious men’s race walking double as Toshikazu Yamanishi won 20km gold following the earlier success of 50m of his compatriot Yusuke Suzuki - promising omens both for Tokyo 2020.

The 52-man field set out at 11.30pm on the Corniche, covering 20 one-kilometre loops in temperatures of 32C and 73% humidity.

The bespectacled 23-year-old seized control of the race between 7-8km and never relinquished his advantage in hot and humid conditions to strike gold in 1:26:34.

Vasily Mizinov, the authorised neutral athlete, came home with a final 5km split of 20:53 to take silver. and Perseus Karlstrom earned Sweden its first men's race walking medal at a World Championships by taking bronze in 1:27:00.

A total of 40 men completed the race - seven did not finish and five were disqualified.