Sebastian Coe vs Said Aouita - 1500/mile race - Who would win?

A peak Coe will always out kick a peak Aouita in the last 100m.

Aouita did not possess the best change of pace.

Yes, it's a shame that he injured his back in early 85, although Aouita probably wouldn't have dared face him anyway.

A sub-par Coe in 85 struggling with a back problem still had the bottle to face both Cram (over a mile) and Cruz (over 800m). So I doubt very much Coe was ducking Aouita that season. In other words - Aouita at has absolute best was still afraid to take on a below his best Coe.

Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

Roy Race wrote:

Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

Cram, Coe and Aouita in 1985 over 1500m.

Cram wins.

Pius VIII wrote:

Star wrote:

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.

Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

Wasn't Sebastian Coe at his absolute competitive peak in 1981?

Coe's 1981 mile WR run in Brussels was sublime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFkEJ3v8AW8&t=285s

My favourite Coe race.

Pretty much perfect.

Coeva wrote:

Roy Race wrote:

Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

Cram, Coe and Aouita in 1985 over 1500m.

Cram wins.

Yes, I agree, because 85 was the year Cram was at his career peak, same too for Aouita. Cram was 24 and Aouita 25.

1985 was not one of Coe’s best years, he was 28. If you take Coe when he was 24, in 1981, or even from post LA in 84, he was a better athlete than his 85 self.

If you take all 4 at their career peaks then I would go for Coe. But if they raced several times at their peaks, there would likely be more than one winner, depending on pace and tactics.

It's interesting to note that in 1988, Aouita appeared to lose some of his endurance in training for the 800m.

He recorded his slowest 1500 and Mile times that year since his sudden 'breakthrough' in 1983 - that is, his slowest times for six years. He ran a mile three times and didn't manage to break 3:50, and only ran a 3:32.69 1500m season best, and even more tellingly, 3:35.74 was his second best time in 88.

Every season before that he was training for the 5000m (apart from 83), and yet managed to runmuch faster 1500 and mile times.

It makes me wonder again how serious the injury was that he allegedly picked up in the 800m in Seoul, and how much he simply realized he wasn't in shape for the 1500m at 100%, let alone 99%.

His times would suggest that in 88, he was essentially training as an 800m runner. I wonder how many all time great 1500m runners would have been able to match Aouita's 1:43.9 if they had devoted an entire year to training for the 800m? I would say just about all of them.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/morocco/said-aouita-91

SaRchOOoo wrote:

You're right, 1988 was a comical low point regarding PED penetration onto the Olympic rostrum, and into the finals. BenJo got all the headlines but 6 out of the 8 M100 finalists tested positive during their careers.

But the M and W400 were the most absurd of all. Look at bulky Darren Clark running 44.3 in his races and tell me, no PEDs! But they weren't all busted.

Yes very big quads, I hope this link opens

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Aouita did however break the 3000m WR – 7:29.45 in 1989 though.

Actually he smashed the WR.

Aouita broke the long standing Henry Rono WR.

Quite an amazing run.

I didn't mean to say he was finished in 88, either as a runner or as a 1500 or 5000 man. I simply meant that his 1500 and mile times reflect that he was going all out for the 800m and speed work and appeared to lose edge in the 1500 that year. Given that he turned from a 3:37 1500 runner into a 3:31 1500 runner in the course of one winter's training in 82/83, it's unsurprising he was able to get his endurance back when he returned to training for the 5000m after Seoul.

We don't really know how Aouita would have done in the 1500 in Seoul (if he hadn't been injured) as he didn't appear to race anyone of note in 88 over the distance. We just know his times were significantly worse than previous years. People just assume that a healthy Aouita would have shown up in Seoul in 3:29 1500 shape. His times that season suggest not, and that his dedication to the 800m would cost him. It also puts into light his achievement in running barely under 1:44 for 800m that year.

Also, wouldn't surprise me at all if 1989 was the one year of Aouita's career in which he was both fit and healthy AND able to try out the new fangled stuff that was going to 'revolutionze' the sport over the next decade.

Not saying his 3000m WR wasn't a great run, but it's surprising he took so long to break it (and Ovett's two miles), given he was the world record holder in the 1500m and 5000m (and in 87 had ran a 27 minute 10000m and in 88 a 1:43 800m). I'm sure Ventilin would have predicted a 7:25 by 1985. Morcelli was running 5 seconds faster than Aoutia's 3000 WR just five years later, and Komen a whopping 9 seconds faster just a little after that.

The reason Coe didn't run more very, very fast 800m times was due to the simple fact that Ovett (and Maree etc) kept running fast 1500m/mile times and meet directors enticed him to take the records back.

Even 9 - 5 is too difficult for Coedeppe. Really, he can't get the most easy numbers correct (in most cases he obviously don't even want to list correct numbers). Really astonishing what an crude ideology can do with some weak mind. This Coedeppe continous to list wrong "facts" for only one reason, to "support" his idol Coe. Strange.

That 1981 mile world record did not indicate a great potential to go a lot faster, in so far as they didn't go out extremely fast and he got pacing to almost 1100m by Byers. 54.8/1:52.67 for Byers in the lead, then about 58.2 and 56.3 for Coe.

Cram closed in 53 in his world record. Coe, though he looked great, didn't seem to have a huge amount left that day.

However he got to that point, Aouita with whatever legal and illegal help he received, and I'm sure that he was blood doping, taking steroids, and possibly even taking EPO in one of its trial phases in the mid to late 1980s, was magnificent at his best, with 4 simultaneous world records across 1500m, 2000m, 3000m, and 5000m, being the 2nd man under 3:30, the first under 7:30, and the first under 13. He ended up about 6/10 of a second outside of Cram's mile wr.

From Wiki: "Synthetic EPO was first successfully used to correct anemia in 1987.[26] In 1985, Lin et al isolated the human erythropoietin gene from a genomic phage library and used it to produce EPO.[27] In 1989, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone Epogen for use in certain anemias.[28]"

zxcvzxcvx wrote:

He ended up about 6/10 of a second outside of Cram's mile wr.

Make this 4/10 of a second.

zxcxcvx wrote:

That 1981 mile world record did not indicate a great potential to go a lot faster, in so far as they didn't go out extremely fast and he got pacing to almost 1100m by Byers. 54.8/1:52.67 for Byers in the lead, then about 58.2 and 56.3 for Coe.

Cram closed in 53 in his world record. Coe, though he looked great, didn't seem to have a huge amount left that day.

Your splits for Coe's WR are a bit out. The times given on each lap were 400m/800m, 1200m, etc, not 440yd splits.

Byers ran 54.92 for 400m, meaning he went through 440 in 55.2, with Coe just behind on his shoulder in 55.3.

Byers' 800m was 1:52.67, meaning his 880yds was 1:53.2, and Coe's was 1:53.3.

That means Coe's first two 440s were 55.3 and 58.0, which is almost a 3 secs differential and not an efficient way to run a mile.

N.B. Cram's first two 440yds in his WR were 57.2 and 57.3, much more even paced, if a little behind WR pace.

Byers moved out wide at just beyond 900m, so Coe got no drafting from this point onwards. You can see from a head on shot at about 2:17 into the race, that Byers is running very wide. He does continue to keep running up to about 1050m, but doesn't offer Coe much help by doing so after 900m+.

Coe runs through 1200m in 2:51.0, so his 3/4 would have been 2:51.9 and he'd have gone through the bell in c. 2:52.2.

This means his 3rd 440yds was 58.6, and his last was 55.4. Or equivalent to a last lap of 55.1.

Coe said after the race that he was holding something back for the last 100m, as he first and foremost wanted to win the race and didn't want to take any chances. The fact his last 200m was 26.8 and his last 100m was 13.1, showed that he clearly had a bit left, and probably lacked a bit of confidence in not going earlier on the 3rd lap. He also stated at the time that if he'd gone all out at the bell, he'd have run 3:46.5.

I actually think he was in better shape when he solo ran 3:31.9 that year, or in LA and Zurich 84.

Both Coe and Aouita were capable of faster than their mile pbs, which weren't quite as good as their 1500m pb times.

said88 wrote:

Even 9 - 5 is too difficult for Coedeppe. Really, he can't get the most easy numbers correct (in most cases he obviously don't even want to list correct numbers). Really astonishing what an crude ideology can do with some weak mind. This Coedeppe continous to list wrong "facts" for only one reason, to "support" his idol Coe. Strange.

What are you talking about now Said69? Morcelli ran over 4 seconds faster and Komen ran 9 seconds faster (rounded up). As soon as other Africans were able to get hold of EPO, Aouita's times were ground into the dust.

In the fifteen years after Aouita finally broke Rono's 3000m WR (Rono who actually used PIDs - performance impairing drugs), his time was bettered THIRTY SIX times (in an event that is relatively rarely run).

Aouita is currently 29th on the all time 3000m list.