Surely not! How could anybody incarcerate such a gentle and cuddly and clearly not guilty creature? Those puppy-dog brown eyes ought to have been proof enough that their owner was innocent of whatever crime had been imputed to him.

And indeed he was innocent, but he was also in South Africa — and if they can lock up Nelson Mandela for 27 years, they’re capable of locking up Aritz Aranburu for the afternoon.

On arriving in Johannesburg for the Mr Price Pro WQS event, Aritz was greeted by a large white customs officer, late middle-aged, with a red and angry face. “He had little bulging eyes, red too,” he recalls, “and the veins were popping out of his neck.” The officer took one look at Aritz’s passport — the lettering on the cover of which was slightly worn — and said: “You think you’re going to come into my country with this?”

He was taken directly to jail and denied the single phone call he was legally entitled to make; when he protested the officer accused him loudly of calling him a motherfucker, a lie which the nearby police officers gladly corroborated. Several hours and one half-hearted attempt at escape by his Ethiopian cell-mate later, it was time to go — not out into the freedom of the South African streets but straight back to Europe on a flight destined for Paris, his wrists bound in handcuffs.

Not to be deterred, upon landing in Paris he headed directly for Madrid, changed his passport and boarded the next flight he could for Jo’Burg. He didn’t win the contest, but he did make it through a few heats, thereby increasing his seeding, and later that year qualified for the WCT for the first time.