14 I really thought he was good and at 16 I was certain if I was patient and played it right there he'd be a world beater he was very very nervous as a little boy and didn't actually achieve very much he achieved when it didn't matter but when he came to the tests like the eleven plus you know I think nerves got to him so much that he failed in eleven plus but I think when he found that he was successful in athletics this was the beginning of him being successful in a lot of areas from thirteen fourteen fifteen it was his willingness to apply himself in all weathers under all conditions never to complain and it is this bloody-minded determination to get to the end all the really top performances come when it's hurting not just winning it's how you win he wants to be definitive in terms of the record books Sebastian Coe is the most successful middle distance runner Britain has ever produced at last count holder of 12 World Records or world best times no British athlete before since has come remotely near that achievement over the past decade co's career seen a spectacular climb to the very top some disappointments on the way but mainly fresh peaks and horizons reached until the summer of 1983 the future looked bright then in a minor 1,500 meter race in Paris Coe unexpectedly got beaten at this distance for the first time in 36 races and seven years apart from an Olympic qualifying heat little did Coe or the world know that on this humid summer evening he would see the start of a nightmare that would in the weeks ahead reveal a rare blood disorder that would suddenly terminate his season and even threaten his whole running career yeah we mean you don't know it's called Hard Knocks isn't it you don't always get rid of people like that so don't carry on the Stars the nuisance of it was not been knocked off the track he was having to pull up the pace to get back which is always uneven the disputed we needed it was a very worrying very sick making year because not only was he not responding to the training in the way that I wanted but there was as yet no medical diagnosis of what was wrong because it's not obvious I was getting pain in the abdomen I was getting pains in the low back my joints were sawed it was something that I had picked up that had infected the blood and certainly infected the lymph glands system it was an infection that was living off my energy sources leaving me very very tired irritable just feeling very very ill I was in hospital I had had a an exploratory operation on the one arm within a week of that that I was told from public health laboratory reports that I was suffering from toxoplasmosis at the summer of 1983 produced a shattering setback in the career of Sebastian Coe the summer of 1979 saw the star in an incredible 41 days that would propel a young university student and his coach father Peter into the forefront of world athletics and the media spotlight scramble Macross Smith of Jamaica is being told off to run a 50 second first lap and co sellers in the second place looks like being a little bit of a Time Trial it's the pacemaker then leading Co second Mike Boyd is Kenya third Peyser Spain fourth Evans white of America in five in Lane six is bragging of Norway and seven is Gary cork settling in there but out at the front the pacemaker taking it on and it looks as if coal would really like to go past him almost holding himself back they're running well on top of the track this very very fast Bislett track the time just about on schedule as the pacemaker they're false and falters and he's dropped out so cones left to do on his own and the time at the Bell fifty point two seconds and COEs already opened up at nine ten yard gap on Mike Boyd bikini and Commonwealth champion and close streaking away from the field now leaving a very class field for dead if co can keep this up we're on for tremendous time that's now 12 yards and Co looking relaxed as he comes into the 600 meter mark this is exactly how he run in Brussels last year only run 140 for his time at 600 meters 75 seconds even faster well inside a world-record pace if he can hold this now running absolutely on his own except 15,000 people now standing Chilean filtering is still going away the great brothers of all time but remembers were 141 142 I wonder if the target official he's well inside that a second inside the world record and the announcement cutting up hurry up the timekeepers place we finish of the race confusion little nasty it is it's confirmed I can only remember the exaltation of you now saying Christ occur voice there is there you know it really did hit us like a tidal wave that is the only description of it from me going to a open day about my youngest daughter with about Emma and not hearing the things I like would like to have heard from her teacher coming here coming home bawling him/her out for wasting time at school and suddenly a picture of Sarah on television in the nine o'clock news saying Sebastian COEs evening broke the world record will be erupted in this room Emma I think must have been so grateful that the shouting stopped and we we shouted so much in this room about said that we didn't actually know what he'd done we just knew he'd done something but what had he done so I had to ring out the local radio radio Sheffield to say did you hear what he did because we didn't and they were the ones who actually were able to tell us what he'd done I mean I knew he'd gone for a race and Peter knew it was heard me you know it was going to be a good race but there's really no question of knowing that it was going to start the floodgates of that 41 days incredible after unexpectedly shattering the world 800 meter record in Norway just 12 days later Sebastian Coe was back at the biscuit Stadium Oslo for the Golden Mile when I go is said to a meeting we've done the work than there's nothing much to say except that I had to say something to him before that mile it was the gold of moloch was the greatest feel to seven whatever and I said you know you can win this he just looked me he said yeah I know that and it was so quiet and so on arrogant and he's not he's not a pushy lad like that but I thought Christ here we go again you know all the field now bunched in pursuit they know that the fast race is on as they've moved through they had a 57 first lap and they're coming through there on schedule for a similar sort of place on the second lap as they go through that's about 155 for the half mile and out goes Lacey so it's now up to Steve Scott of America and Sebastian COEs gone with him and they were leaving the field a gap is open up Westing Hager not able to move with them this is a decisive break yes I think they misread the race day when Lacey dropped out hit left it beautifully to the Copeland's seen the danger number eight and he's chasing after but Scott as lacy dropped out Scott kicked hard and only Sebastian Coe responded and these two are well clear when you think of the caliber of this field the world's finest runners and Scotland Coe are well out in front then Scott has to keep going because he must be terrified of close ability for his devastating finish and look how relaxed is Scott laboring already costume and it's already up 2:53 mother not a great Lacey but we're also very very fast time is strength and aggression that he did as he takes Scott ow eight Steve Scotty American and yard against the clock and all of the field could be on for a very fast time mr. Bastian cold the rest of this field looked very very pedestrian he's looking round but he must be confident a slight grimace but he's so relaxed that he's coming away all down this field now they're waking up in the pack behind but it's too late they're forgotten five extremely fast forty-ninth or Negroes or these underneath it Co is second in two 3:49 another barrier broached by this remarkable young man 22 years old and he has the world now at his fingertips his determination is built into him in that he is over he has always insisted on winning every family must know the child who needs to be out of cricket just have to forcibly kick him out and say looking very definitely were caught and we very definitely were bowed it's an aspect I suppose we don't really like with our children that I faced so that is really what he was like although totally unaggressive in any other field I mean he never had to be a winner in anything else but he did in sport at a Union Jack for the crowd attached to the branch of the tree this young man so what is so Abel she's on the track everyone is dedicated if they see what they're doing is successful I think when he saw he was successful the more success he had the more dedication he had I don't think that if he hadn't been in fact I've said to him once you know you like success you like winning you're very dedicated in what you do and he said yes but if I didn't win I would find something else I want if I didn't win in athletics I would find something else I did win that you always strike me as a running machine you never stopped running do you know I just enjoyed it I mean so simple as that I just got a lot of pleasure from it tell us about the race now could you hear the lap times when people were shouting out I heard the first lap being somewhere in the 50s and I thought you know first that felt quite easy what surprised me was the third lap which I thought was going to be the real crucial one out there I thought that was going to be the difference between a jumped-up 800-meter runner and the two minor and I didn't find it as hard as I thought it was gonna be what did you plan because you were saying before the race today that you weren't quite sure how it was going to go you didn't know how you're gonna sure you were far more confident than that really I think you always got to be confident of your own ability I think you know it's pointing to stepping out on the track if you're not if you've got a certain amount of confidence but to be quite truthful you know when you line up with the world's best smiling field I mean it you know hey you just you just sit in I think if you're not a miler you let them do their worrying and decide what to do would you count yourself a mile an hour well in the true sense of the word no because I'm not that really I'm I've this is the fourth mile in that many years it's one of year for me there's always going to be come a time in life when you've got to declare your intent you know they all they sales to the mask colors or whatever you know and really go for it it's a big night the pressure is there the minute you commit yourself people are not only expecting it but if you admit that it can be on then of course the the media will do the rest the pressures that you invite by doing this very very substantial and the more declared that intent is the greater the pressure for yourself but why not he got the eight he got the miles a 15 was the prank let's go for it on the 15th of August 1979 in Zurich Switzerland in front of a capacity crowd Sebastian Coe was committed to breaking Phil but by his five-year-old 1,500 meter world record Coe is by now a meteor event the current support sensation the eyes of the millions watching around the world on television that night anything less than a new world record would have been a major disappointment even failure Seb and Peter Coe knew this but were confident the hard work had been done back home tonight was the payoff David Millar one of Britain's foremost sports writers and COEs closest friend on Fleet Street witnessed each of his key races from the beginning of his career and has a deep insight into the code character if you go back to when submerged at the end of his teenage years when he obviously had enormous potential I think it was vital that Peter managed to achieve a transition from the young athlete into the adult without any serious breakdowns because of injury and then of course what they discovered faster than they really expected was that Sam had this phenomenal basic speed they went short first whether he was going to be a half mile hood or or a mile of 1,500 metres man he's a very contained introspective sort of chap and the mental thing when he's running is his concentration is enormous he can manage to exclude to a great extent all the other things from his life he simply basically wants to be the fastest man of his time actually to produce the mechanical conditions the temperamental conditions the physiological conditions that will make him the fastest man on earth even i46 to me 13 I know yesterday the club me to be cool by a margin of just one tenth of a second Sebastian Coe breaks the world 15 hundred meter record on that August evening his reputation is now secure 41 days that rewrite the history books you consider that at the beginning of July that season I broke the 800-meter world record literally 12 days later I'd broken the mile and a month after that had broken the 1,500 meters I don't think it had too much of an adverse effect on me the major departure in terms of all that came in 9th at the end of 1979 and it was a very difficult situation to be sitting literally six seven eight months away from the Olympic final having broken three World Records at that distance and as far as the average guy on the street was concerned I only had to turn up and stand up in the Olympic Stadium to win two Olympic gold medals learned anybody in athletics knew that that was far far from being true by the close of 1979 Sebastian Coe had been voted International Sports Personality of the Year by many of the leading polls newspapers and TV networks around the world he was now a genuine star attraction to further whet the public's appetite and expectation for the 1980 Moscow Olympics less than one month before the start of the games Coe return to the biscuit Stadium Oslo for the first time since his 41 day triumph to challenge the 1,000 meter world record he's very relaxed he's very fluid his controlled power that we saw at this stage last year 140 there seems like some nervous glow war backs beginning to come back at him yes indeed Wahlberg suddenly woken up to the fact that he can run and he can run this last 200 and cold a pretty his teeth tightening up the world record standing at 239 wall back close he got in with every stride as Co got the strength to see this all through this line he must do it can he break that world record now 213 by half a second he takes his award the world record since I'll shrub in about 1906 there's anybody help for world record by lowering the world mark for 1000 meters Sebastian Coe established a unique milestone the only athlete ever to hold simultaneously the 800 meter 1000 meter 1500 meter and 1 mile World Records the next challenge Moscow and the Olympic Games to achieve the elusive 800 meter and 1500 meter double training to be good has to be systematic it has to be progressive it has to be hard it's very nice at the end of the day to be able to go out and run for therapeutic purposes but by and large anybody who's noticing the scenery you know here's Vardhan or whatever it is playing in his ears is not possibly working as hard as he should the every record achieved on the track a high price is paid by the athlete in training Sebastian COEs commitment is time consuming intense and total one of the first things I did when we came to Sheffield and we got involved in running was to see what the area offered and we live in a part of the city where when you leave your front door almost any direction is up so that you're not short of hill running what you do is to select the right gradients the right streets in relation to traffic and we came across what we call the riverine Valley Road and you can put together half mile runs with short recoveries down there which are really cruel do you survive training up there you know you're tough you're hard and don't bond the first one too fast make it more arranging shop and pace judgment because you've got to keep this right here in stone for money right here so what's your feet how you take your feet yeah yeah okay when you're ready I've been working out on that Ruben Valley Road for at least 12 or 13 years basically what it is is between six and eight half-mile sections of road back to back I have the car as a space and most of them are run significantly under two minutes is a very short recovery that is hard that is probably one of the hardest of the conditioning sessions that I do the quality of what you do is much more important than the quantity y pound the life out of a young runner when you can develop it with quality now the bit about quality is that if you think of it in terms of speed and speed endurance you are mentally equipping him to go through not so much a pain barrier but to learn no matter how badly he feels he can still go and when you're faced with the last lap of a solo run in a world record there is no running training there is no physiological secrets no dietary aids other than that single bloody-minded will a hang on over that last 400 and comes sprinting through that line now if you don't in gender that on the way you're missing the missing the whole point of what the training is about now your feet okay that's your time yeah it's okay yes now don't get any faster all right yep it's extremely hard work you have the car pushing up behind it's nice because that is extra pace but he does it does check the time up considerably it's probably the recovery that's the hardest you're doing this run like that if I catch Peter on a good day then I've got a minute in the house you're inside half a minute now 20 seconds ten when you are ready sir you on the road so you don't think a great deal because the intensity in the hardness of that session is just simply trying to forget that it hurt that's all the trying to do international running is just about feeling tired all the time it's very difficult for people to really understand this the worst thing I can do is to walk around a department store that is just such a dreadful waste of anything my mom was long yeah I know so 100 meters long yeah at 100 meters only seems like things like I think as an athlete you're inclined to conserve energy in a way that other people don't know why climb that slider stairs if you've got 10 miles on the road this evening be lazy and we're inclined to move around during our normal days like like snails you can't drive an athlete what happens is this that if he chooses you and accepts you as a coach you can at your only coaching with his consent it is what he is prepared to consent to and subs consent is total inside the areas for which I'm given charge you one of the powerful aids in training is the athlete must believe that what he is doing is good for him and if you've got a pattern which you've achieved success on you're very loath to change it it's not just superstition but it's a feeling and this is the same with the environment same with everything else success tends to breed more you get confidence from succeeding with what you've done it's in terms of the kind of intensity of training and the speed endurance we can I put to say I think I've open one or two people's eyes and one or two doors I think one of the major benefits that I had was the fact that Peter did not come from an athletic background now some people could say well the sessions he sets are hard simply because he doesn't know what it's like to have to run those kind of sessions I look at that as a distinct advantage that is my job slick racers it is my job to select the training programs he's got other things in his life all that he is concerned are with in running itself is to get down to the nitty-gritty of it do the training sessions that I specify get him done well get onto the track and perform it begins there and ends there now know why not well look there's only two more before the big one in Helsinki and the both of those are really booked up and he's too near peeking now so I what no no no nothing to change my mind he's intelligent he works things he has a scientist mind he is a qualified engineer and is inclined to look at the sport from what he would say his first principles everything in mechanics you work through on that basis he has worked through systematically firstly has a great capacity for understanding and a great capacity for research and for applying that research to a specific need which is getting me to run faster not do it in morning about 10:30 start now I'll tell you something is a sodding helena city have not been up this afternoon you had a good lunch widowhood evening special Thank You smoothies for athlete every dusting your life away watch me yeah Boyle they're coming up to speed up at norm speed endurance and it's going to be hard off the speeding onto the ground it's been very nice to do what I've done with somebody that I actually enjoy working with I tend to think we're very good mates and we've had a lot of laughs and a lot of enjoyment and a lot of disappointment but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way I really can't believe that they have achieved so much together I think it's and I it really has been two people together who have achieved it it's it's completely fantastic to me how they can actually still speak to each other after all these years of having to be together the thing is it's fish-and-chip favorite page three is nothing on it never so I wanted a little bit gold medal athletes the best encoders found a glamorous new love Sun exclusive I got around there the local newspaper to ask me if I tried to make a comment on your new romance the lovely thing is they would expect you to dish the girls your own yes that's right I mean I would do discuss it with a neighbor they came to the door so I'm certainly not going to discuss it well tell him Phil affair Kennedy well blow again morally deed in the Western world there's the first place he doesn't believe what he reads about himself I think probably if you continually read things about yourself you might actually begin to believe it I'm very glad that he doesn't he laughs a lot of the lovely things written about him I mean he sort of says oh you know they want to see me really you know not to watch me what what I really like and I think that's one of his saving graces that he knows that he's nothing like well that sort of says nothing like me there is a there is a little bit of truth in everything that's written but it's so over the top most of it but thank goodness he doesn't believe it a very big one that you line on it and I guess you you'd lose more than your pound if you run 50 nanometers in that one before and after all in the case so Buhl been racing in this Oh the last year 18 months that's polyester here's our new tactile vest and we'd like to know how it grabs you I suppose I was one of the first athlete to get involved or be allowed to get involved openly with sports sponsorship in athletics my sponsors are I CI who's kit I racing during the athletic season Nike and shoes I run in I've done some television advertisements for Horlicks from hurts who provided me with the transport that happens the right to fold it on the solid that this feed a lot but I know I said that some time ago but this idea well 20 minutes everything you're on a bit higher at the head and a little more to your left that's it no less well yep that's it a whole boat that's it I'm very pleased I'm doing what I'm doing now I don't think I'd want to be involved quite as commercially as athletes in 10 years time are going to be I think they're going to be in a real minefield maybe won't be long before we are referred to as runners rather like the amateur gentlemen distinction disappeared in cricket tennis players are just tennis players now they're not soon it moves to a situation where it can be totally honest with itself for the better I still basically come and as the Steve Evette and Daley Thompson we still come from the US what I've cited as the second-class rail ticket and the 75 pence meal voucher end of the sport we didn't get involved in it for any other reason than than we wanted to run and we showed some talent at various age groups not a materialist by nature he doesn't gather things around him I think he would happily live with a toothbrush and a change of clothing which is cost exactly like his father I mean the only reason we have a house is because I must have insisted on having actually owning something but I think Peter would never wrote anything if you left it to him so I think yeah I don't he's not it isn't his the be-all and end-all of his world to own things I'm not going back in the woman who runs the ice we said the other girl my side I said yes she said actually she said the girl we put the set loose on her nickname was digger she's died this week Wow Seb Coe is based in Loughborough he shares a small semi-detached with his close friend Steve Mitchell outside Seb's family few people know him better underneath it all I think he's as hard as steel he's outwardly very as I said easygoing and lighted laugh and a joke there's only naught point three body fed on set so if you haven't guessed he's the slimmer one of the two of it you take any any precautions health-wise it's all said I mean it's always wanted to ask you like do you suffer from athlete's foot okay we're on the box hey so I lost a lot of talk about tonight he's a spinning Jam alchemy is relative always the other way around but please suffer from athlete's foot cuz I do I can't get rid of mine the Chavan love the wires it lets you they like to laugh on the joke he likes to go out testify to Tiffany but obviously he's got a bad temper I don't eat those movie either there's 76 that's one six years my son I thought I was caught up in a bad Google a few minutes drive from his home his COEs place of work laugh bruh University of Technology well I'm here as a research assistant I graduated 1980 took a year or two off to concentrate on the games and came back again sort of 81-82 as I'm actually working as a research assistant in the Department of PM's for science yeah well that's good that's good I mean if you can if you can come in next week and see us that would help and it just helps us in our planning and I think it gives you more time to make the most of your advertising as well I try to be here sort of every day of the week obviously with at various times the season it's difficult because there's a nice understanding that well I'm still trying to be involved in top-class athletics I'm going to need a little bit of time here and there but by and large most of my year is spent here in my spare time is taken up by listening to music whether recorded or live and quite openly admit to being able to listen to jazz at any time of the day I would quite happily give up to tomorrow give up athletics in order to be able to proficiently play jazz on an instrument it seemed that everyone was saying one thing and they were everywhere I went I could hear conversations no he's never going to do it how can he how can he expect to do it now and of course they were talking about said because this time was was alive with talk about said but I just raced back to this house and wanted to ground myself I just hated all the conversations I'd heard everyone nobody giving him a chance so passing the last to come across on the inside the Juergen strobe is looking across Co is on his shoulder but nobody wants to lead ovett settles into fifth crown is found a little hole for himself though he's actually in fifth place though he's settling it behind the Frenchman marajó I think I was very low for a day and a half two days I suppose really the moment I realized that I was going to be okay was 1500 meters semi fine when I ran up a good aggressive normal type of race it's that realization that not necessarily that you're going out there to win but it's going to cost other athletes normally late to beat you they drop this field with 300 meters to go honestly believe he could he could run the whole lot of number two I think I see I'm very very slow rise here and on paper the last 300 meters / it's good in itself out now is running around the outside just a little bit is in sixth place and the time for the first lap it's a sort of time we'll see later in the women's 1500 meters it will worry me if they continue to go this slow because I think number two 9/6 Andres butcher of the GDR whom we expected greater things in the fifth place could become a real threat the obviously constrains at the end this slow pace weather you might not become a force that you haven't really considered at the back at the moment you know Joseph passing he's also got a very strong finish as well at the moment it's Straub and the three British lads right at the front there sever the front of those the blonde hair of crammed Stevo vet booster on the outside marajó in the middle the black from France the question is really is just hanging on in and the leader hanging in in the leader here and hoping to go off as a 400s Tagore that would be a good tactic if it was away early well 2:05 as opposed to 153 in the world record schedule and strobe has decided now to take it on and I'd expect code to take it up with 500 meters to go oh that's in fourth place covering it nicely moving up behind coast tribe has really struck quite hard off the front and buses responding through into fourth place as well so now just let's see what Co does because Stroud was committing so if you likes the fast-paced runoff the fund anyway but once again that looming figure evolved it in third place not looking stretched yet just handling it reeling them in slowly not using up any excess energy a strobe now commits himself to the front going into this last lap now they're in single file strap of East Germany Seb Coe Steve over and butcher from East Germany butcher not looking too comfortable in fourth place but it could become a danger the police still pushing along marajó of France moves up into fifth place Coe still sat back there a vet is watching him all the way down the backstraight ovett beginning to wind up now ready for a strike yes he's going to be ready to take calls they go into the bend and trap go behind and strobe strive with 200 to go and his wife the front and he goes over it's starting to move up Coe is starting his sprint now and it's between these three the three class men of the field Coe hits the front looks around and he's got over got his shoulder and now this is the test he's got two metres on him I know it's going to have to sprint all the way it goes away the front and it looks like girl's going to do it no he's going to win the 1,500 meters and Eric's gonna get only a bronze medal a fantastic run by in second place turbine over solutely too late about 52.3 and he cannot believe it and fantastic run after the misery of last weekend when he lost in the 800 and now everything is back in golden again grins he's not taking it badly that was unbelievable I believe in vegan cooking by myself Australia or someone like that the world would have just said what types of failure a horrible thing to actually to do but they would have done there's no doubt about it I mean that the press were actually loading the guns waiting to fire them almost on that particular day it was Seco aquaplaning down the backstraight there they got to the fire and really shook the world we shot the other 50 - the actual old Moscoe with Murphy's and it went wrong for two people because conceive have got 45 unbroken twins he had no business in the world losing the 46 Sebastian COEs was the world record holder the 800 meters and he got beaten he may have made a right Rickett of the race so he's not supposed to do it so they both come away with a gold medal and they both come away with a real mental bruising because you know they have done the other you know they it's not thinking the unthinkable they've actually done it they've lost the thing that nobody else has said they're going to lose since the dramatic outcome of Moscow Sebastian Coe and steve-o vet have not met again on the track the next confrontation is likely to be the Los Angeles Olympics in the past two years the position of dominance attained by Cohen ovett has somewhat waned both have suffered through injury illness and defeat and both have been overshadowed by the achievements of the third Britain in the Moscow 1,500 meter final Steve Cram who at that time was the future prospect learning his trade Oh you commitment determination and application were never qualities that Sebastian Coe lacked since recovering from his illness at the end of 1983 he is now back in serious training for that showdown at Los Angeles with his arch rivals steve-o vet and the young Steve Cram rebuilding his strength and stamina and searching for that majestic searing speed that has made him the fastest middle-distance runner of his generation you if you ask the purists which is the one perfect race Sebastian Coe has ever run most would pick his third world mile record each lab each stride was run to plan run to perfection on that August evening in Brussels in 1981 Sebastian Coe was truly invincible I have got to believe that what I will be remembered for is coming back at 1984 and winning a gold medal in Los Angeles
