Heroes All - Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett
The middle-distance rivalry that was reminiscent of Chariots Of Fire
It's been a while since men's middle distance running has been a big deal in Great Britain. Yes, we've had some talented athletes (Curtis Robb, who quit the track for a career in medicine) and some tremendous triers (Olympic silver medalist Peter Elliot and European indoor champ John Mayock). But Jake Wightman’s recent heroics aside, the 800m and 1500m have been a far from happy hunting ground ever since Steve Cram hung up his spikes.
This was not always the case.
From the late '70s until the mid-'80s, Great Britain was the first nation of middle-distance running. This dominance was partially due to the aforementioned Cram who became the inaugural World Champion in 1983. However, if you ask most members of the public who the kings of the track were during this period, they won't hesitate to say Stephen Michael James Ovett and Sebastian Newbold Coe.
Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe - like Oxford and Cambridge and Manchesters City and United, it wasn't the done thing to support the both of them. Since Ovett was the son of market traders, he was treated as the people's champ, the Alf Tupper-style 'Tough Of The Track' who ran on his guts. Coe, on the other hand, was seen as a middle-class college boy. That he was in truth a bona fide outsider (his mother was Indian while his father and coach Peter was the son of Jewish war-time immigrants) was conveniently ignored since it didn't fit the story the press wanted to tell. Coe and Ovett represented different sides of the British experience and when they ran, the classes watched to see who had the upper hand.
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