For the late afternoon drinkers and smokers at the tables outside the Imagine bar within the main concourse of Zurich’s central train station, very little was left to the imagination.

Bang in front of them stood a temporary structure, liveried in the blue and yellow colours of the Samsung Diamond League athletics event.

The Hauptbahnhof’s lofty arches were filled with the smell of cooking bratwurst and the booming sound of, bizarrely, Cotton Eye Joe. Yes. It was time. For the “Kugelstossen Frauen”.

Those citizens not moved to enter the steep, transitory stands which surrounded a gladiatorial patch of marked sand had the action relayed to them via a giant screen. Truly, this special setting for the climactic women’s shot put competition was bringing athletics to the people.

And as the post-release roars reverberated all the way up to the dusty windows and steel roof girders, the people - a mixture of aficionados, curious drifters and sceptical teenagers - began to warm to the action.

In front of them, 10 women were competing for a final prize of $40,000 and a nice, sparkling diamond trophy for their mantelpiece began to warm to the spectacle.

Correction. Two women were competing for that prize, as only New Zealand’s statuesque Valerie Adams-Vili had enough points to overhaul the smaller, and it has to be said not obviously athletic figure of Nadezhda Ostapchuk, the Belarus thrower who had won all five of her previous Diamond League gigs.

But 10 women were competing, sure enough. And this novel setting meant that competition, instead of being a distant statistic in a corner of a foreign field, was a living, breathing, striving spectacle.

For those who had chosen to step inside the charmed circle, there was an opportunity to observe the caged tigers as they paced up and down their narrow corridor beside the throwing arc.

It was hard to believe that ten sizeable athletes could manage to avoid each other so completely in such a cramped space, avoiding each other’s gaze like commuters on a packed Tube train.

Each of the athletes in turn made their way to the little plastic shell  containing what looked like a block of chalk amidst a sea of chalk, spreading the white powder onto their hands and smearing it liberally around the side of their necks, into which one of the shots - lined up in a long tray like tenpin bowling balls - would nestle.

The mighty Cuban, Misleydis Gonzalez, her wild hair corralled in a white headband, sent her shot arcihng into the air with a huge grunt of effort. You could hear the thud as the weight hit the sand, and see and hear the satisfaction it provoked in the means of its propulsion.

As she returned to the shun sector Gonzalez had to brush past the even taller figure of the European champion, Nadine Kleinert, The German made no great effort to move aside, staring directly forward with a look that might have been turning everything in its ambit to stone.

There was a tangible stir when Adams-Vili (pictured), the woman who has ruled this event for the last two years, came to the circle. After releasing her throw, she skipped backwards, full of nervous energy. 19.59 metres. Good - but probably not good enough to hold off Ostapchuk, who seems only to operate in 20 metres plus territory nowadays.

And here was the leader in the clubhouse, much less obviously powerful than her New Zealand rival, with a little curtain of brown hair hanging down over her pale face.

There was no grandstanding. All was swift and direct. Pick up the shot, get into the circle, shuffle, turn, release.

It was only in the moment of release that something extra seemed to happen as the shot was sent on its way with mysterious power. In the speed of her action, Ostapchuk brings to mind the Czech Republic’s triple Olympic javelin champion Jan Zelezny, a relatively slight man who dominated a generation of giants with the excellence of his technique.

20.08. The leader in the clubhouse made her way back to retrieve her top from the bench where she had left it. In doing so, she passed the seated figure of Adams-Vili, who maintained a steady forwards stare.

But if much of the body language was saying tension, the nature of the event was starting to change. Emotions were leaking out. Kleinert, for one, was clearly not happy with her form, and as she returned to the holding area she gestured with frustration and shook her head in the direction of her coach in thestand. The woman with the stony glance suddenly looked meek and vulnerable.
Vilii, too, was not settled, twisting and tilting her body as she passed her coach, trying to understand what it was he had just seen in her action which had prevented her from gaining the required distance.

After Ostapchuk’s second throw, that required distance was 20.63m, and although Adams-Vili managed to get over the 20 metres mark with 20.02 there was nobody equal to the challenge of the Belarus thrower. The PA system, constantly filling the space with noise, began to play a song with the chorus “Get your money on.” Perhaps it was coincidental.

Emotions of joy also began to colour the event. A personal best and national record effort of 19.09 saw the compact and magnificently named Cleopatra Borel-Brown (pictured) of Trinidad and Tobago pogo her way back to the bench, and back again, in loud exultation.

The crowd responded - as did fellow thrower Jillian Camarena-Williams, of the United States, who hugged her prancing fellow competitor.

Soon Camarena-Williams, her hair tied in a girlish yellow ribbon, was exulting in her own right. A personal best of 19.18m send wails of joy echoing through the concourse. And when she improved that to 19.50 to take third place there was boundless joy on her face as she skipped and bounced around what space there was.

There was even a show of emotion from the habitually impassive Ostapchuk, as a mighty chuck, her best of the day she later said, was given a red flag because she had stepped marginally outside the circle in delivering it. Had she not done so, she would have had an extra $20,000 coming her way as the Weltklasse meeting’s bonus for a season’s world best.

Shortly afterwards, however, Ostapchuk looked pleased enough with her lolly, diamond trophy and bouquet of yellow flowers.

Those who had witnessed her successful final act were satisfied too. A good idea all round from the organisers, transforming a distant statistical blur into sharp and memorable lines.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames