1980 Olympic Men's 800m final - Sebastian Coe vs. Steve Ovett

First of two eagerly anticipated meetings between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett in Moscow.

GOLD - Steve Ovett (GBR), 1:45.40
SILVER - Sebastian Coe (GBR), 1:45.85
BRONZE - Nikolai Kirov (URS), 1:45.94

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Steve
• Ovett
• Sebastian
• Coe
• track
• men's
• 800m
• meter
• final
• 1980
• Summer
• Olympic
• Games
• Moscow
• Nikolai
• Kirov

[arsenal4274]

@hoyadestroya85 Your talking utter Bollocks!!!

[newromantic888]

Ovett visually looks like the more gifted runner. As massive fan of the great Kipketer I can see the similarities.

[hoyadestroya85]

Don Paige deserved to be in this race and very well may have won.

[222mozart]

music by my friend L v Beethoven

[TheEctomorph]

@martynhanson [Continuing on from my previous 'post' about the Coe/Ovett rivalry at the Moscow Olympic Games]: in the 800 metres (1:45.40) was irrelevant. For some reason, however, many athletics writers didn't bother to mention that fact.

The media certainly didn't give the 'big O' the credit or acclaim that he deserved for winning the Gold medal in the 800 metres at the Moscow Olympics, back in '80. Shame on them!

[TheEctomorph]

@martynhanson I think that you have a valid point there, sir. After all, when Mr Ovett's fabled rival, Sebastian [now Lord] Coe won the 1500 metres final in Moscow on 1st August 1980, his time was 3:38.40 secs. Given that the world record (at that particular time) was 3:32.03, Coe's winning time was not lightning fast, by any means. Yet the media said that, that was "irrelevant". That may well have been true ...... but it was also true that Mr Ovett's (relatively) unimpressive winning time

[martynhanson]

One of the posts below referred that Coe was a perect human being. Yes, class is important in our country, I'll give you that.

One thing I will say about Ovett is this. Did you notice that whenever he won slow as in Moscow 800m and 5000m in 86 they referred to his time as slow as soon as he finished. Now, I don't recall this ever being said about anybody else.

[TheEctomorph]

[Continuing on from my previous 'posts' about Lord Sebastian Coe] middle-class man, capable of talking in a fairly 'posh' (if not quite Oxbridge) accent, certainly helped to endear him to many journalists and members of the media - ones that came from the same social class as himself, that is.

[TheEctomorph]

[Continuing on from my previous 'posts' about Lord Sebastian Coe]: 'play ball', as it were, and co-operate with the media. In the early years of his career as an international athlete, he seldom refused request for interviews, and he would often (if not always) tell journalists and 'gentlemen of the press' what they wanted to hear. As a result of this, he tended to get a good press, so to speak, and to be depicted as Mr Nice Guy. And, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that he was a

[TheEctomorph]

[Continuing on from my previous 'posts' about Lord Sebastian Coe] that point onwards, he was more than a little wary of journalists, and of people in the media generally. For a period of many years - from 1975 until around 1982 or thereabouts - Ovett seldom agreed to be interviewed by members of the press, and consequently a number of journalists labelled him as "unco-operative", "ill-mannered" and "stand-offish", etc, etc. His rival Sebastian Coe, on the other hand, decided to