Liu Xiang, Usain Bolt, Yelena Isinbayeva and the other titans of track and field face the same challenge when competition starts tomorrow - do something at the Bird's Nest stadium to top a memorable opening ceremony highlighted by a retired gymnast's spacewalk to light the Olympic flame.
Consider it likely.
Under that fiery cauldron at the 91,000-seat stadium, the morning of the first day begins with Bolt and Asafa Powell of Jamaica and Tyson Gay of the United States qualifying for the 100 metres.
The first golden moment will come later Friday when Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia seeks to turn her domination of the 10,000 into her first Olympic title.
It will set off the scramble between African giants Kenya and Ethiopia to determine which is the dominant force in long-distance running.
That is hardly the only duel to highlight the nine days of competition which will last through the 24 August closing day of the games.
While swimming is overwhelmed by one story - the dogged pursuit of a record eight gold medals for Michael Phelps - athletics has a captivating story every day as the sport tries to recapture its pre-eminent status at the games following years of doping scandals.
"The circumstances are here to have exceptional games," IAAF president Lamine Diack said.
There will be no bigger story than China's biggest star, 110-metre hurdler Liu. He is seeking to win what would likely be the only gold for the host nation in the iconic stadium.
The stage is set for the showdown with Dayron Robles of Cuba, who already lowered Liu's world record earlier this year by .01 second to 12.87. With heats and the semifinals, the drama will be spread over four days, culminating in the 21 August final.
While Robles has been outstanding through the outdoor season, Liu has been struggling with injury.
His sore hamstring has many questioning whether the defending champion will be fit enough for the biggest race of his life.
Injuries also shadow the other marquee race of the athletics programmeme.
In the 100, Gay has also struggled with a testy hamstring. He went down seeking to qualify for the 200 at the US Olympic trials last month and has not raced competitively since.
Powell, meanwhile, has been recovering from a chest muscle injury which wreaked havoc with his early season coming into the games.
It puts a big question mark behind the three-way dash for gold, though both claim to be fully fit.
All eyes will be on Bolt, who shot onto the scene this year with a stunning world record of 9.72 seconds, shaving .02 off Powell's mark.
Even if a contender in the 100, the Jamaican is foremost a gold medal favourite in the 200 and along with the Jamaican sprinters could well beat the Americans in the 4x100 relay. It makes him a realistic prospect for a rare golden sprint triple, something not done since Carl Lewis in 1984.
American sprinter Allyson Felix was marketed early this season to do even better - a potential quadruple champion. But her failure to qualify for the 100 squashed that story, leaving her a mere favorite in the 200 and a potential candidate to add golds in both relay races.
Over longer distances, Kenenisa Bekele will seek to become the first 5,000-10,000 champion since his Ethiopian compatriot Miruts Yifter at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Bekele missed the double by .20 seconds in Athens four years ago when he was beaten at the line in the 5,000 by now-retired Moroccan great Hicham El Guerrouj.
However, in the 10,000 he will have to outrun his nation's greatest champion, Haile Gebrselassie. The veteran returned to the 10,000 for a last time since he refused to run the marathon in Beijing's heat and pollution. Getting an unlikely gold would make Gebrselassie the first triple Olympic champion over the distance.
Bekele will also clash with Bernard Lagat, the Kenyan-born American who is seeking to double in the 1,500 and 5,000. He did so at the world championships in Osaka, Japan, last year, where the humid and hot conditions were very much like Beijing's.
The United States is coming into the games with one of its strongest teams yet and could surpass than the record 14 gold and 26 medals overall it won in Osaka.
With athletics closing out the Olympics, the gold medal rush on the track could take on a meaning well beyond the sport. US runners could decide one of the major questions dominating the games - will China or the United States finish at the top of the medal standings.
If that is not drama enough, there is the added dimension of world records hanging heavy in the evening air.
After none was set at the worlds in Osaka, this season has already been exceptionally productive. Five world marks have already been set, with Robles and Bolt grabbing most headlines.
Pole vaulter Isinbayeva, though, is the only one to do it twice this year. And the defending Olympic champion usually delivers when counted on. At 26, she has improved the indoor and outdoor world record 23 times.
At the Bird's Nest, she might well have to do so again since she has been pushed hard this season by Jenn Stuczynski, who set a North American record of 4.92 metres at the US trials.
In the high jump, Croatia's Blanka Vlasic has only had one opponent for almost two years now - the 1987 world record of 2.09 set by Stefka Kostadinova.
She has come close, but so far been rebuffed.
Diack though, already, thinks there might be a new standard set Saturday in the 100 final.
"Anything can happen. We can go below 9.70," he said.