Popular Nostalgia

Once upon a time, British athletes ruled the globe in middle-distance running.

Througout the 70′s and 80′s, Steve Ovett and Seb Coe vied for world records and Olympic medals with magnificent displays of athleticism and talent. Though they rarely met, the two competed for records and column inches. The competition was made all the more remarkable by their contrasting personalities.

Ovett was a rough, working-class street fighter with a natural ability, whereas Coe was a handsome sensitive, self-made runner. Coe could be as abrasive as Ovett, sometimes more so. Coe twice failed to take Olympic gold his favoured distance, 800 metres, but then twice returned to the track within days to triumph in the 1,500 metres.

Ovett was well known for a flourish at the finishing metres -fostering a grand reputation before he was crowned European 1500 metres champion in Prague in 1978.

Coe was tipped to make it a British double over two laps only to finish third behind Ovett in their first track clash. However, the following year he spent six weeks thrashing the record books in a unique run of championship.

In Oslo on July 5, 1979, Coe broke the 800m record in one minute 42.4seconds, returning to the Bislett Stadium 12 days later to capture the mile record in 3:49.0.

Coe targeted the 1500m world record a few weeks later, and captured his third record in 3:32.03 at Zurich’s Weltklasse Stadium – officially becoming the first man to hold all three records.

Coe added the 1000m record in 1980, but lost the Olympic 800m Gold to Ovett after his tactics failed him. He is quoted as saying “Tomorrow is another day, and there will be another battle”. He bounced back to become the first man to defeat Ovett over 1500m for three years as he triumphed in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium with his jaded team-mate in third.

By then, Ovett had captured Coe’s mile record in Oslo and on the same track equalled the 1500m time which he then claimed for himself after the Olympics – 3:31.36.

Coe then regained the mile record the following summer. It lasted a week, as Ovett returned to Koblenz to recapture the mark with a time of 3:48.40.

Just two days later in Brussels, Coe completed an astonishing nine days of middle-distance running by the duo by shattering Ovett’s new best mile record by the incredible margin of just over a second.

The new time of 3:47.33 would last for four years until another Brit Steve Cram, by then the country’s number one, himself took a second off the record in Oslo with Coe back in third.

Coe also lowered his own 800m mark in 1981, clocking an astonishing 1:41.73 in Florence, a time which stood for 16 years until equalled then finally broken by Denmark’s Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer.

Cram would also claim the 1500m mark in 1985 from Ovett who had lost it two years earlier – though for just a week – later losing it to the American Sydney Maree.

Gateshead Harrier Cram had begun the transition of power in Helsinki in 1983 when he captured the 1500m title at the inaugural world championships with Ovett out of the medals in fourth.

Coe had been unable to bid for the 800m crown because of illness which threatened his career.

He was out for months and needed to be controversially selected for the 1984 Olympics despite losing the ‘trial race’ to Peter Elliott.

In Los Angeles, Coe silenced his critics as he outran Cram to become the first man to win back-to-back 1500m titles, and afterwards making a famous wild-eyed, finger-pointing gesture to the British press.

Ovett dropped out of that race, overcome by chest pains which had caused him to collapse and spend two days in hospital after the 800m final in which Coe had taken silver.

The rivalry was over, marked by Ovett pushing himself to the limit. The days of Britain’s middle-distance greatness were coming to an end – African runners dominated the sport from the late 1980s onwards.

But for a while at least Britons had left the rest in their wake.