I saw this interesting article on one of our running clubs website.
STEVE OVETT (born in Brighton on 9 October 1955) had an extraordinary year in 1977.
This was three years before he became an Olympic 800 metres champion and started breaking world records, of course.
He won the inaugural IAAF World Cup 1500 metres title in Dusseldorf on 3 September (in the UK record time of 3:34.45), just 35 days shy of his 22nd birthday, and also clocked 21.7 sec for 200 metres in a Southern League match at Ilford in July. This mark was disputed at the time, but is quite genuine.
Ovett always had an enviable ability to combine speed and endurance.
Note that he ran his fastest ever time for 800 metres (1:44.09) at Prague in late August 1978, the same year that he won the Inter-Counties Cross Country title (over 12 kilometres) at Derby in February.
You youngsters should note that in March 1975, Steve also won the National Junior Cross Country championship over 6 miles, eight months after winning the Southern Junior 400 metres title at Crystal Palace in the Championship record time of 47.5 seconds!
But perhaps his most remarkable endurance feat was to win the inaugural ‘Winlighters’ Dartford Half Marathon on Saturday 20 August 1977.
Twenty-one-year-old Ovett travelled from Sussex to Kent for the event with training partner Matt Paterson, intending to run 10 miles with him as a training session and then drop out.
But on arriving at the venue he decided to race the entire distance and paid the race officials in cash for a late entry.
As he did not have racing ‘flats’ on him he borrowed a spare pair of Nikes from Paterson.
Fast forward a few kilometres into the 21.1 km race: we find Ovett some 100 metres ahead of the third man running easily alongside Cambridge Harrier Barry (Barrington) Watson, an accomplished English road racer and winner of the Poly Marathon the year before.
The two men knew each other quite well: they had been team mates at the Montreal Olympics a year before.
In Canada, Ovett had raced the 800 and 1500 metres and Watson the Marathon for Team GBR.
“Watson is a real rabbit merchant”, recalled Steve, talking about the race. “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit - he never knows when to let up.
He kept on talking and pestering me, so I surged as hard as I could in the last mile to try and get rid of him.”
Steve forced the pace, eventually broke clear of his talkative, head-bobbing rival, and then raced through the finish line a few seconds ahead of Watson in 65:38.
But as Ovett had entered on the day, he could not claim the winner’s prize - a large 42 inch TV set.
Watson was the official race winner as he had sent in an entry form with his entry fee before the race entry deadline and was therefore able to claim first prize.
This was in accordance with the rules, and no problem for Ovett, who had only intended to complete a long tempo training run that afternoon anyway.
As Watson lugged the boxed TV set to his parked car after the presentation, he stopped to chat with Ovett as the latter sipped a cup of hot tea, flanked by Paterson and other Brighton & Hove AC club mates.
“I knew that I had to break away well before the last mile if I was going to beat you today”, Watson said. “But you knew that too, didn’t you?”
Ovett replied, “Of course. It was elementary, my dear Watson!”
Today's young athletes should be aware of what a great range of talent Ovett had over different distances.
It might be worth pointing out That during his career Steven Michael James Ovett won an Olympic title at 800m (1980), a European title at 1500m (1978) and a Commonwealth Games title at 5,000m in 1986!
And he set six world records at 1500m, Mile and 2 Miles....
Looking at the dates, it occurred to me who but Ovett would run (and win) a half marathon road race a mere two weeks before a World Cup 1500.
And look at how he finished in that race - the road run certainly had no effect on his speed.