The Lenin Stadium in Moscow may not be high on many people’s list of unforgettable places, but for Sebastian Coe, as he said earlier this week, “This spot probably defines everything else I’ve done for the whole of my life”. That interview with Coe was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 early morning programme, Today, for which he was guest editor last Monday, Boxing Day (on the British holiday calendar).
Coe’s guest editorship was largely due to his position as head of the London Olympic Games Organising Committee (LOCOG), but that Coe has occupied a prominent place in British public life for the last 30 years is due to that ‘moment’ in the earlier paragraph when, having lost the Olympic 800 metres at Moscow 1980 in an ignominious fashion to his great British rival Steve Ovett, Coe redeemed himself magnificently by winning the 1500 metres a few days later, and in the process beating Ovett, who had not lost a 1500m/mile race in 45 outings over three years. Becoming the only repeat winner of the Olympic 1500 metres, in Los Angeles four years later, only cemented that position.
In the context of the Today programme, Coe was taken back to Moscow and the Lenin Stadium for a lengthy interview, only a few minutes of which was broadcast last Monday. But as he went on to say about the Moscow 1500 metres, “It was a big, big moment… You look back at key moments… would we be standing here doing this interview….(otherwise)?”
Of course, for a long moment, there was a possibility that the Brits might join the US-led boycott, along with the other 50 or more countries who boycotted the 1980 Olympics, ostensibly over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (How hollow does that ring now?). Coe, of course would go on to be a Tory (Conservative) Member of Parliament under Margaret Thatcher, who was the most strident voice in the UK calling for a Moscow boycott.
But, in that part of the interview broadcast on Monday, Coe said, “It wasn’t as easy a decision as people thought (to go to Moscow); athletes are thinking people too. We didn’t just say, it’s sport, we’ve got to be there (with) an air of entitlement.
“For me there was a tipping point; it was the moment when the maximum pressure was being applied (fellow Moscow gold medallist Allan Wells revealed that pictures of Afghani children allegedly killed by Soviet troops were sent to Olympic athletes by government departments). Pipe and gas contracts (between the Soviets and the West) were still being signed; the Bolshoi Ballet arrived in London, and I thought, hang on a minute, this just seems to be disproportionate….”.
And so they went; and as Ovett said to me a decade ago, “If we’d have chucked in the towel, I don’t know what would have happened to the Olympics”.
Well, like the pipe and gas contracts, they would have struggled on anyway; but that’s another story.
The rest of the Coe interview will be broadcast in a special programme dedicated to the Coe-Ovett rivalry in Moscow, and it will air on BBC Radio 5Live, between 19.30-21.00gmt next Thursday, January 5, and your correspondent, having catalogued much of that rivalry in The Perfect Distance, will be the studio guest.
The programme can be heard live worldwide at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/stations/5live
Pat – For the past three decades, I’ve had a framed copy of the two-page Sports Illustrated photo of Coe ecstatically breaking the tape in the 1500m in Moscow. One of the greatest athletics photos I’ve ever seen. The article by Kenny Moore was titled, “How’s this, Mrs. Mallory?” and appeared in the August 11, 1980 issue. Lord Coe was good enough to fill me in on the Mrs. Mallory story the first time I met him.
well, you’re going to have to fill all of us in, Brendan.
was she one of the people who called in to the BBC with advice on how to beat Ovett after the 800?
was it the famous ‘pull your finger out, Coe’ message?
Exactly, Pat. I finally met Coe at the London Marathon’s stellar 25th anniversary bash in 2005, a quarter century after the Moscow gold. He told me that (back in those pre-fax, pre-email, pre-texting days) he really did receive the famed telex from a Mrs. Mallory back home that basically told him, “Pull your finger out, Coe. I’ve got money on you.”
By the way, the Kenny Moore article also includes a wonderful shot of Poland’s Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz giving the pro-Russian crowd a special “salute” after winning the pole vault gold.
re Kozak, who is a great character, there is a fantastic French expression for the salute you refer to
it’s called a ‘bras d’honneur’, bras meaning arm, rather than our preferred finger
I admit up front to some subjectivity, Pat being a good friend of mine; but, for those of you who have yet to read “The Perfect Distance,” Pat’s volume documenting the rivalry of Coe and Ovett, I recommend it as a belated Christmas present to yourself. If there’s a better track and field book out there, I’ve yet to read it. – James O’Brien
thanks, James, the usual crate of beer will shortly be on its way
I’ve read your book, “The Perfect Distance” several times now, and it is a great read, especially when viewed alongside Ovett’s bio and Coe’s trilogy of books. I really feel the whole, “Ovett is a working class grafter, Coe is the toff with the silver spoon in his mouth”, is a totally inaccurate portrayal of the two, and your book goes some way to dismiss that jaundiced view of them.
Btw, any more info on the film that was to be made on the two in time for the Olympics? I know the script was to be based on your book, but have heard nothing in the last couple of years since it was first announced! Are they still making it or has it been a victim of the cuts in these austere times?
Hi Dean,
thanks for that big vote of confidence
yes, the film is still on the go, shooting due to begin in spring, release in UK around Olympics
thanks again, Pat