He looked at the scoreboard, he put his hands over his face, he smiled, he jumped about.
Great Britain’s Adam Gemili had just won the first senior medal of his career and he could hardly believe it.
His success came in the 100 metres final on the second day of the athletics programme at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Monday night and one of Europe’s top young sprinters was in dreamland.
At only 20, the 2013 European Athletics under-23 champion had made a superb start before just being caught in the latter stages by Jamaica’s Kemar Bailey-Cole who won in 10.00.
But in 10.10, the British sprinter was in second, ahead of another Jamaican, Nickel Ashmeade, who was third in 10.12.
But Gemili was not sure where he had finished - and he needed the confirmation from the scoreboard at Hampden Park to show that he was on the podium and that the progress so many people have talked about for this young man was happening.
'This is my first senior medal and I am speechless,' said Team England's Gemili.
'There is so much preparation that goes into running just 10 seconds - it is not as easy as people think.
'The reception I got was absolutely unbelievable and it is something I am never going to forget. It was not about the time, it was about the position and I have done it.
'Medals are what counts and this is a stepping stone now for the European Championships in a couple of weeks, the World Championships and then eventually (the Olympics) in Rio.'
Gemili has opted for the 200m at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich where he is second on the rankings with 20.20 behind Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre with 20.08, but he has so many years ahead of him.
Once a footballer, his decision to put track and field first saw him burst onto the senior scene two years when he reached the 100m semi-finals at the Olympic Games in London.
That same summer he had won gold in the 100m at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona having won double silver - in the 100m and 4x100m relay - at the European Athletics Junior Championships in Tallinn 12 months earlier.
Usain Bolt might be opting only for the relay in Glasgow but in the end that took nothing away from a brilliant 100m where Gemili had run 10.07 in the semis. It was not his quickest time of 2014, that is his personal best of 10.04, but it was the way he attacked that race from the start.
He did the same in the final before the tall stride of Bailey-Cole was just too much. But Gemili could not have been happier had he won the gold.
England also made the podium in the hammer as Sophie Hitchon won bronze with 68.72m as Canada’s Sultana Frizell triumphed with a Games record of 71.97m and Julia Ratcliffe, of New Zealand, was second with 69.96m.
'I have the Europeans next,' said Hitchon. 'And in the next few years, this will stand me in good stead.'