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'The days
when Ovett and Coe ruled the world’
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FIRST AN INTRODUCTION TO TOM HURST,
THE AUTHOR:
I started
collecting Athletics Magazines and books in 1981, this led to a
fascination with statistics, and results and as I got older the history of the
sport both in Britain
and world-wide. My passion for this led my first attempt to collate every sub 4
minute mile ever clock. That was in 1984. Gradually my ‘expertise’
increased, until by the late ‘80s, I felt fully conversant in most forms
of athletics- fell running excepted, I’m afraid; This meant I was able to start
projects with a reasonable expectation that I would get an end product that I
would be happy with.
By 1995 I
had my name mentioned in Athletics Weekly for a piece of the mile scene,
(and where it all went wrong), the heady days of fame and autographs never
followed. Apparently, no-one outside of athletics cared! Ho hum.
I did a piece on
the History of the IAAF World Race Walk Cup and sent it to
someone I heard of that might be interested. I was extremely pleased by what I
had done and was eager to let others see it. By 1996 I was working for
the IAAF (World governing body), for ad hoc duties. Essentially,
for media guides and Official Handbooks for the period 1997-2004.
I also contributed for Track Stats, (a quarterly publication by the British
Union of Statisticians), from 1995-2003, the DGLD, (the German
union 1996-1999), and was assistant editor for World Junior Athletics
News from 1999-2001.
I also have
compiled career records that have been published in the Autobiographies for
both Jonathan Edwards and also Paula Radcliffe, (paperback
version). The Kelly Holmes review never made the book, but some you win,
some you lose.
Oh, and last
year, I got up to date with my sub four minute mile project. Only 54 missing
times, (which isn’t bad). My library of athletics material is, to be honest,
ridiculous. However, any question that needs asking I can answer within 5
minutes, so the world is in order again, (joke).
I enjoy all
middle and long distance events, (marathons included), and jumping events.
Can’t abide the 100m scene anymore, and wish we could get rid of the shot putt
altogether.
As an athlete, I
recently made my comeback race in the middle of March with a 3 mile
‘fun’ run. Well, I’ve bit a work to do I reckon…still at least my fiancé didn’t
beat me. We finished together…which earned me a lift back home, as against a
long walk home!!
Anyway, this
isn’t a cure for cancer, it’s a sport and a pastime and, let’s be honest, a way
of meeting old friends. 30 years of following a sport, through the good times
and bad, (scandals and drugs for example), and it all started one August
evening in 1978. Good things can happen when you least expect them.
Take
care Brenda and good luck.
Tom
Hurst
Part One
I got into Athletics
in 1978. I remember watching the Commonwealth Games that were being held in
Edmonton, Canada
that August on the BBC. There are only two things I recall
from those Games: firstly, of
reading the Medal tables and seeing Australia had beaten England
for most gold medals, (this I learned as I got older was not unusual), and
secondly, that I saw my first long distance race. Within 13½ minutes I had
become hooked.
Brendan Foster, who had won the 10000m title earlier in the week was now
taking on Henry Rono, the Kenyan superman, in his greatest year,
(the 1978 that saw Rono break world records in four
different distances), 'fresh' from 
winning
the steeplechase title at the 5000m. Foster
was the reigning European 5000m Champion
had ran a stunning 27 minutes and thirty seconds, (27:30.3) on a rain-drenched track at Crystal Palace in June to win the National (AAA) 10000m title. This was half a second inside of Bedford's former world record and quicker than
Samson Kimobwa's 27:30.47 from Helsinki
the previous year. Unfortunately, (for Foster),
Rono had run 27:22.47 in Wien, 12
days earlier. Still Foster had run a
sub 3:58 mile in Crystal Palace two weeks later, so he was in the best shape of his life
against the best runner in the world. Subconsciously, the eight year old,
watching the TV, had paid attention to the commentators to note the task that Brendan Foster had ahead of him. I mean
he was taking on Henry Rono!
Alas, Rono won at
a canter in 13:23.04, with the
consistent Mike Musyoki, (of Kenya
second), with Brendan Foster a distant third, (13:31.35). There was something about Foster's stride and manner that showed
that he was not a runner who accepted defeat easily, and more importantly kept
trying.
I was eight years old and I had found a sport I could relate
to.
Then 1979 came along:
My allegiance to Brendan
Foster never lasted long. However, the memory of him running away from the
field at Torino,
in the August sweltering sun, to win
the Europa Cup by 20 seconds, still
sticks with me, and typifies the man as the runner he was. Always prepared to
do his best, always ready to take the race on, and willing to try something
different to catch the opposition off-guard, whether it got him the win or not.
I have a confession to make. I was nine years old, and I was
easily won over.
First came Sebastian
Coe, a student from Loughborough,
who was an 800m runner. Ok, ok. He
had just shattered Alberto Juantorena's
world record by over a second, and was returning to the very same Bislett track in Oslo
to run the IAAF/Golden Mile.
However, as a miler, he was unheard of internationally. He had nearly run away
from John Walker in the September of 1976 at a windy Gateshead, a week after finishing 7th in the Emsley
Carr Mile behind Moorcroft to
run his first sub four minute mile (3:58.35).
In 1977 he won the Emsley Carr Mile, but that was it. To
say he was a dark horse would be to imply that anyone, other than close friends
and family, would have placed a wager on him in the first place.
The field was the best assembled in years: (quickly running
through), John Walker, the world
record holder, second fastest 1500m
runner of all-time, 2000m record
holder and the Olympic 1500m
champion. Steve Scott, the American champion and fast establishing himself as the best of the
new brigade, Eamonn Coghlan, ‘chairman
of the boards’, former European
mile record holder, fastest in the world indoors, and future world 5000m champion, Graham Williamson the 19-year-old 'wunderkid', Dave Moorcroft, Commonwealth champion and third behind Ovett and Coghlan at Praha for the
European Champs, Thomas Wessinghage the European
mile record holder, and arguably the best miler on the continent mainland. To
add to this there was John Robson,
who was the best Scottish 1500m runner;
remember Frank Clement? Britain's best of the early and the mid-70’s
had now found Scottish athletics at
an incredible standard. Williamson
was Scottish too, and on the rise.
He had won the Emsley Carr Mile in
July 1978 in 3:55.9, beating Tim Hutchings, Masback, Foster and Steve
Cram, (all inside 3:58). Craig Masback was a graduate of Oxford University
and proving himself adept on the European
track circuit, but ultimately, the standard would prove too strong for him that
day. Then there was Ken Hall the Australian, who, although a very fine competitor
was never likely to figure. Takeshi
Ishii of Japan
was only entered to please Far-Eastern
sponsorship, and then there was Seb Coe,
who had won the Emsley Carr Mile in 1977 beating Filbert Bayi, but was still the second-slowest runner in the race.
Well, to cut the next four laps a bit quicker. Steve Scott and Thomas Wessinghage had arranged a plan to take the race away from Walker
and present either of them with a chance to win the honours. This, of course
didn’t happen. Coe, with no pedigree
at the distance, at this level, simply strode away from Scott et al on the 3rd lap, and with no fear, no expectation and no
sense of pace, jogged through the tape as the winner. He had broken Walker's 4 year old world record, by nearly
half-a-second, (3:48.95). Scott, disbelieving he was bettered by
someone who wasn't a miler, eased off at the line. He missed Jim Ryun's 12 year old American record by one hundredth of a
second, (3:51.11). Masback became the seventh fastest
miler of all-time with an inspired 3:52.02,
(which although this was to stay his best ever, he had several near-misses over
the next few years), before the avalanche appeared.
Coghlan, finishing like a steam train, ran an Irish record. Robson
finished close behind and just ahead of the deposed record-holder Walker,
(3:52.45, 3:52.74 and 3:52.85, respectively). Wessinghage's European record reign was
also over; he finished in 3:53.15
and had become increasingly anonymous in the pack. Williamson? The 19 year old upstart? He had his shoe ripped off
approaching the 1500m mark. The fact
he ran a 3:53.22 and had broke two
junior European records, (only Jim Ryun had ever ran faster. Ever! Ryun was world record holder before he
left College), in the race, signified the raw potential and talent that Williamson displayed. Moorcroft was out-of sorts and did well
to p.b with a 3:54.4. Hall ran 3:55.3, unable to keep up with the ferocious pace, (57.0 440y, 1:54.5 880y and 2:53.4 1320y),
but running admirably for an ‘out of touch’ tenth. Ishii, a better runner than he showed, and not in his best season,
was a dismal last in 4 minutes and two seconds. The middle-distance scene would
never be the same again.
Out of Brighton, the artist, maverick and media-vilified racer,
that was Steve Ovett, felt his pride
pricked. It irked him to no longer have the attention which had shifted to
someone else - less so, a fellow Brit.
Ovett had not lost a 1500m/Mile race in over two years. His
dominance was complete. He was the new (Herb)
Elliott. He had a destiny of Olympic 1500m gold medal winner awaiting him in little more than a year's
time, and suddenly from nowhere a half-miler was threatening his claim. Ovett, Britain's top 800 runner in 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, and 1978, had
not lost to Coe in their previous
meetings, but Coe had wintered well,
and was not the same runner who promised much in 1978 only to run himself, (and Ovett)
into the Czech ground at the Europeans. It was an East German who benefited from Coe's inexperience then. In 1980, it was another East German who would play a vital role
in the script for the Moscow Olympics.
However, more of that later. Back to Ovett.
Ovett had regularly played down the talk of running for record
times. He only wanted to beat the opposition, never the clock. Records are
there to be broken. Titles and medals are there forever. It was a philosophy
that had paid great dividends over the previous 6 years, culminating in the
emergence as the best miler in the world 
-
bar none. The man who had made John
Walker drop out, (1977's IAAF World Cup),
and become a broken man. Walker's 3 year reign was over in consummate
fashion. Ovett was the man who toyed
with Europe's best milers and at 1300m then shifted gear to win the European title by nearly a second, waving
and easing up. This was to become his trade-mark. He would always wait and
kick. Everyone knew that. He had lost to Olaf
Beyer at the European 800m, running a British
record of 1:44.08, helped and
hindered by Coe's apparent head-rush
in 49.32 opening lap, but apart from
that, Ovett was without pears. He had even beaten Rono at the Palace, over
2 miles, in a world’s best in September
1978. He was despised by the press, for his refusal to talk to them and for
his apparent contempt of his rivals. He had won the 1979 AAA 1500m title via straying into Lane 8 waving to the spectators for the main reason that he felt like
it. The fans seemed to love him for much the same reasons. He brought a breath
of fresh air that was much needed in British
athletics. There hadn't been a 'maverick' since Dave Bedford of the early '70s and Ovett got the crowds in.
So, he had come to a decision, he would go for the World Mile record and he would do it in
the pre-Olympic year, thus
re-establishing himself over the winter months as the World number one.
On the 15th of August
at Zürich, Seb Coe ran his first 1500m
in 2 years. He broke another World
record, fractionally shaving Bayi's
record with little thanks to the Kenyan
Kip Koskei's extravagant, (make that
near suicidal), pace-setting, (54.2 for
400m, 1:53.2 by 800m), to win by 4.9 seconds from Masback and clock 3:32.03.
Ovett's response was extraordinary. At the Rotary Watches meeting at Crystal Palace on the 31st August he lined up to maintain his
claim to the throne. He had won the ISTAF
mile in West Berlin
two weeks earlier, (again with Masback
second), had missed the World Cup,
and was ready. Also ready was Dr. Thomas
Wessinghage, he had won at the Weltklasse meet in Zürich over 5000m, in a
pedestrian 13:37, but he had the honour
of being the first runner to defeat Miruts
Yifter in several years, launching his own blistering sprint some 300m out. He won at Köln in 3:36.97 over 1500m on
the 19th of August. He then
travelled to Montréal to win the 1500m at the IAAF World Cup, and on
to London.
The
pace was swift, (55.9 440y), and towards
the end of the second lap the German
took over the lead, and the pace at 880 yards was 1:54.8, (which was only 3 tenths of a second shy of the Oslo pace - which Coe went through in 1:55.1),
so expectations were high. Thomas Wessinghage
continued like never before on lap three, with Ovett still just a stride behind and ominously binding his time.
The three quarter mile time was 2:52.7,
(Ovett inside 2:52.8); Coe had clocked
2:53.4 at the same point 43 days
earlier. The crowd were convinced that they were watching something special
unravel before their eyes. Then came the fourth lap: When Coe ran his record he was firstly in blissful ignorance of what he
was doing, (something Seb Coe has stated
many times over the years. Then again why would a 3:57.7 miler have any idea what a 3:49 mile would feel like, apart from it hurts like a 3:56 mile might?). Secondly he was on
his own. He had no fear of anyone trying to beat in Oslo.
Ovett in the London
race knew what was going on and, here in lies the difference between the two of
them. Ovett waited - his instinct as
a racer remained intact. He still had a race to win as Wessinghage was still motoring on at a hitherto unheard of pace,
and Ovett couldn't get the record if
his lost. So Ovett waited until just
before 200m from the line before he
took off. He quickly built up a six yard lead over the determined Wessinghage. He passed 1500m in 3:34.0, (behind Coe's
3:32.03 and 3:32.8 en route to
the mile record), but still made him Europe's 3rd fastest ever. He raced on. No
waves, just a Soviet vest sprinting
to the line in relentless pursuit against the one competitor he couldn't beat
that night: the clock. Ovett's
winning time was 3:49.57, the third
fastest time ever, (behind Coe and Walker - 3:49.4), the fastest time to
not have broken the record. Wessinghage,
at 27, ran a West German record at 1500m,
(3:34.7), and battled in vain to
clock 3:50.56; the fourth fastest
time, the third fastest miler ever, and the faster-ever non-winner.
I was nearly ten years old. I had a sport, and I had an
idol. To be honest, Seb Coe never
stood a chance in winning my loyalty, and, when you're that age, well nothing
was more important. So, I was doing well.
1980 could not come soon enough.
Written by: Thomas S. Hurst C218 Warbreck House
Submitted: 18th February 2008
Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor
Part
Two to
follow . . . . .