Number one - kerching! - is Jake Wightman realising that his bold, front-running quest for a medal at last year's World Athletics Championships in Oregon, with the lean and hungry Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen at his heels, was about to turn golden.

I wasn’t present in person for that one, but I was for number two - Kenya’s Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie both winning the Sydney 2000 Olympic men’s 10,000m in a stupendous final straight effort which ended with the little Ethiopian winning it by a fraction more - by 0.09sec in fact, which was less than the margin of victory in the men's 100m at those Games.

Number three, also witnessed, involved Kelly Holmes, who in those Sydney Games had defied injury to earn a bronze that she described as her "gold", winning the first of what would turn out to be two actual golds at the Athens 2004 Olympics. Her expression as she crossed the line to take the Olympic 800m title is an image that will endure in the history of the sport.

Sorry if that’s a bit Brit-orientated, but those are honestly the three that first came up.

As for any of the times - I couldn’t tell you. Which maybe tells you something.

Watching Ingebrigtsen again last night - via live link from the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Silesia - lowering his own European 1,500 metres record from 3min 27.95sec to 3:27.14 was a gripping experience to be sure, as the Norwegian moved yet closer to the world record of 3:26.00 set by Hicham El-Guerrouj in Rome 25 years ago.

As it happened I was there to see that race. And if I’m honest the thing I remember best is the fact that, as the Moroccan came through the line, Seiko’s trackside digital clock showed…nothing. A blank.

Consternation reigned in the press box until the requisite information came through to reassure all of us about what we had just witnessed. Until that numerical validation, we were all as blank as that digital clock.

That fretful hiatus underlined the obvious but reductive truth - the whole effort would rise or fall on a couple of digital figures - or maybe even one.

On this occasion El Guerrouj rose historically to the challenge he had set for himself. But inevitably, down the years, the majority of "world record attempts" fail. Of course they do. And the feeling for spectators and press alike, however irrationally, is akin to being offered a lollipop and then having it taken away.

World record attempts are necessarily reductive. The whole exercise, with pacemakers surging forwards and then dropping away, is akin to the progress of a lunar module on the end of rockets that fall back into space once spent - and the module is only designed for one person.

Assisting this process in ever greater measure over the past three years has been Wavelight technology - which uses a variety of pacing lights along the inside rim of the track.

Typically blue lights lead the way to guide the pacers before giving way to the green lights that snake around the track indicating world record pace. Often, further back, a series of white lights are in play to mark qualifying or national record pace.

This multicoloured system, turning the track into something like a funfare waltzer, was used to full effect at the meeting in Valencia in 2020. On that occasion Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia lowered the women’s 5,000m world record to 14:06.61 and, on the same evening, Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda reduced the men’s 10,000m world record to 26:11.00.

As it has come increasingly to figure in the sport, the reaction to this new technology, welcomed by the World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, has been mixed.

It is expensive - meaning only the top meetings can afford it. Clear echoes of VAR and football here.

Having seen it in action on many occasions, my feeling is that it can turn athletes into straining operatives. There’s a touch of the lab-rat syndrome about it. And when an athlete doesn’t manage to be in world record-breaking nick, the slithering green snake ahead of them serves as a humiliating marker of their failure.

Last week, in the Irish Times, a great former athlete, Sonia O’Sullivan, wrote a considered and heartfelt piece which expressed some of the doubts she has had about what she nevertheless describes as a "remarkable" new technological aid.

One recollection in particular from the woman who won world gold and Olympic silver at 5,000m struck home with me:

"At the Diamond League meet in Oslo recently I was invested in watching the women’s one mile race where the stadium record was under threat from some of the world’s best athletes.

"I was sitting in the stands and found myself watching the light go around the track more than the race itself and questioned myself if it was always such a good thing to be chasing times and, in the process, missing out on the actual race?

"In that instance I found my eyes were drawn to the race against the lights and lost the connection with the actual athletes."

But this was only a warm-up before she got into her stride.

"I now realise that as much as Wavelight technology has a place in athletics events it also narrows the focus and also narrows our connection as fans with the individual athletes," she wrote.

"All sports need personalities to make it more attractive, yet athletics is leading towards being more about numbers and statistics, with just a very small number of personalities connecting with the fans.

"As a result I feel this reduces the growth and exposure of the sport beyond a very niche few that can relate to fast times and ranking points.

"If every race you go to see is set up and paced perfectly then the races become more predictable and less exciting to watch.

"The championship events are the few that remain free for now from Wavelight technology, where actual competition and racing is still the draw.

"It’s only a matter of time, however, before the lights will enter the national, European, World Championship and Olympic stage, but I’m not sure it is such a good thing as it creates a more one dimensional sport with too much predictability and very few surprises.

"The new personalities of the sport are crushed when every race is a time trial.

"Competition is squashed by a pace that is requested by one athlete and as a result creates a pecking order and the races are organised in favour of the better athletes and all the rest are expected to line up and then just fall in line."

Wise words. Will they be heeded?