5th August 2013 09:58
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| What could have happened if Sebsatian Coe did not win the 1500m gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980? 'I am not even sure I would have been in the sport a year later,' he reflected last year in an interview in the Mail on Sunday. |
The reason was the nerve-shredding middle-distance duels between Sebastian Coe - Lord Coe - and Steve Ovett.
The Great Britain pair arrived in Moscow as the multiple world record holders.
They left having won 'each other's event in an athletics programme that people now, particularly in England, can still even recall where they were when the races were run.
What better way to set the scene for what lies ahead at the end of this week at a World Championships which could become the turning point in the careers for so many European athletes.
It is not often, though, that a country pauses what it is doing for track and field, but in 1980 that was the case in the seconds before the 800m and 1500m finals.
As Dave Moorcroft, the former 5000m world record holder, famously said: 'It wasn't the Moscow Olympics...it was the Coe-Ovett Olympics.'
The pair raced each other only six times in their career and two of those were in the Luzhniki Stadium.
How they dominated the middle-distances was shown in how for one hour in 1980, Coe held four world records all at the same time: the 800m, 1000m, 1500m and mile.
But within 60 minutes of him breaking the 1000m record in Oslo, Ovett then took the Mile mark away from him with a blistering run of his own at the same meeting.
Then just four days before the Olympics started, Ovett equalled Coe's 1500m world record with a run of 3:32.1.
The stage was set...with everything pointing to Coe winning the 800m and Ovett the 1500m, a distance he had not lost at for over three years. But few could have predicted what would happen next.
The 800m final came first, on Saturday July 26, and Coe was the favourite. But even though he held the world record of 1:42.33, his tactics were all wrong, as Ovett's tactics were spot on.
Coe stayed at the back of the field, and too wide, for too long, in a bumpy race, where Ovett hustled his way out of trouble and as they reached the home turn, the world record-holder was never going to make up the ground.
Ovett kicked away in brilliant style to win in 1:45.4 from Coe in 1:45.9 with Nikolay Kirov, of the URS, third in 1.46.0.
Ecstasy for Ovett - because the event where he was favourite was still to come and he already had a gold medal. As for Coe, despair.
Ovett said in his autobiography of the race: 'I kept thinking: 'Where's Coe, where's Coe?'
Coe acknowledged how badly he had run but had six days to put it right and the 1500m final on the Friday evening could not have been more extraordinary.
East Germany's Jurgen Straub set the pace and Coe stayed with him. The pressure was growing, the tension immense, but the form was with Ovett because of his unbeaten record.
But when the home turn came, it was Coe's turn to kick this time and Ovett could not match him. Coe won in 3:38.4 from Straub in 3:38.8 with Ovett thi