Ovett was basically as fast as Coe over 800m to mile. Coe never managed to beat a healthy Ovett in a major championship over 800m. Looking at their PB's over the mile distance it is no contest. Ovett is just far superior at everything from 3k to 5000m. Ovett also had the WR for 2 miles, and was commonwealth champ over 5000m in 86 and was fith in the national cross champs. Coe never broke 14 mins for 5k by comparison.
So I would say that Ovett >> Coe.
Ovett Fan wrote:
Ovett was basically as fast as Coe over 800m to mile. Coe never managed to beat a healthy Ovett in a major championship over 800m. Looking at their PB's over the mile distance it is no contest. Ovett is just far superior at everything from 3k to 5000m. Ovett also had the WR for 2 miles, and was commonwealth champ over 5000m in 86 and was fith in the national cross champs. Coe never broke 14 mins for 5k by comparison.
So I would say that Ovett >> Coe.
Ovett was not "basically as fast as Coe over 800m to mile"
Coe ran 1:41.73 vs 1:44.09 for Ovett. That's a world of difference. Even in th 1500m/mile, Coe was a second faster.
The 3k/5k times are irrelevant since neither guy was the best or one of the best in the world at those distances. They were both 800/1500 specialists. To say that Coe never managed to beat a healthy Ovett at 800m is a bit misleading since they only raced it once when both were healthy (at the 78 Euro Champs, Coe was sick and lost a good deal of weight). If you want to say that Coe never beat a healthy Ovett at 800m, then you can flip that around and say Ovett never beat Coe at 1500m, ever. Coe beat Ovett in the 80 olympics when they were both healthy, plus in 84 and 89. And Coe's record of 2 olympic gold and 2 olympic silver is superior to Ovett's 1 olympic gold and 1 olympic bronze. Ovett may have broken the 2 mile wr, but that is/was an infrequently raced event and his wr was inferior to the 3k record. Coe smashed the 800m record twice and put it out of reach for 16 years. I would argue that Coe was better than Ovett.
jimmy saville wrote:
Everyone gets injured at some point or another for whatever reason, Coe got ill, had stress fractures, and stood on a rock or something. Both these guys still had v little time out compared to most, which is one reason why they were so good. I think this particular injury was sufficiently far enough into Ovett's career that once recovered he could get back to fitness fairly quick enough and it will have had little affect. Obviously getting injured is gonna hamper training, but it happens to everyone and is part and parcel of being a world class athlete. If he never got injured perhaps he would have been marginally better, perhaps not, but this would never happen and is true for everyone.
What you say Jimmy is true but this wasn't a standard injury or illness associated with training and competiting in athletics. It was a freak accident, which makes it all the more sad that it possibly limited the career of one of the best all round natural runners the world has ever seen.
The injury was an accident but it was still a running-associated injury, and injuries happen for all sorts of reasons. You can argue it may have limited his career but I really dont think it affected his personal best times and performances in major championships greatly.
jimmy saville wrote:
The injury was an accident but it was still a running-associated injury, and injuries happen for all sorts of reasons. You can argue it may have limited his career but I really dont think it affected his personal best times and performances in major championships greatly.
It's a running associated injury yes, thanks for stating the obvious. It was not a standard running injury though. It was an accident and completley out of his control.
Runners expect to be injured or ill at some points in their career. It's an inevitable consequence of all the hard training they have to do, pushing their body to the limits. However this was a FREAK injury that was very serious and without it Ovett would have definitley run faster that year and probably built on that and run faster over his whole career.
To what extent he would of run faster we will never know but I think it would have been significantly faster and he would have got more records and medals.
He himself said he never felt the same after it.
Ovett was a working class hero.
Coe on the other hand is just a middle-class mama's boy who likes to strike poses for the cameras.
Guess whom I prefer?
Rogerthesheep wrote:
Ovett was a working class hero.
Coe on the other hand is just a middle-class mama's boy who likes to strike poses for the cameras.
Guess whom I prefer?
You are a p$nis. This has nothing to do with the question.
So Ovett didn't pose for pictures when he ran down the home straight waving?
Shut up.
Firstly, it doesn't matter whether it was as you say a 'freak' injury, or a strictly running-related injury. An injury is an injury, they happen for all sorts of reasons. Just because it wasn't caused by the excessive pounding of the legs during training, and was 'an accident and completely out of his control' doesn't mean it wasn't a standard running injury.
He took three months out in the winter of 1981, big deal, when we're talking about major effects on his career we're talking about records and olympic medals. The olympics was three years away which was easily enough time for him to get back to his best, which he did, and he MAY have won the olympics if it wasn't for the illness he got. I don't think running into the railings three years earlier made much difference to his olympic hopes. His illness and the timing of it arround the 1984 olympics had a much greater effect on his career.
id prefer a beer with ovett
but would put money on Coe
More wr\'s, more oly medals, faster times
Maybe he could then ice skate better than Nancy Kerrigan?
Rogerthesheep - Coe and Ovett were both great (sublime) athletes, but I see your point. Ovett won me over permanently when he gave one of his medals to a disabled child who was a great fan of his. It may sound corny, or perhaps I am making too much of a small gesture, but Ovett really "got" how much impact this kind of thing could have on a child and the community. And he didn't do it for attention, either. A true hero and champion, in my book - along the lines of Zatopek or Murray Halberg. We would all be better to follow in his footsteps.
perfect post. i agree 100%
I think as a person Ovett is by far and away the most admirable character, Coe has done verything he can to stay in the limelight whilst Ovett has shunned it. Most runners will say they prefer Ovett as a person and indeed he could see how irrelevant his running was in the grand scheme of things, his famous quote which goes something like...
I don't really care whether people remember me for running round and round in circles in years to come'
I think ovett is the kind of person we would all like to be, successful but complete enough to have an overall view that there was more to life... Coe still craves the cameras...
And I could trust ovett...
Very interesting reads.
In 84 I read Coe's book and went nuts. I wanted to be just like Coe. I loved the training methods. He was my hero. And Ovett was a bad bad man. It said so in the book, really.
Years later I read Ovett's book, and the one by Harry Wilson, and spoke to someone who knew them both.....and then I watched and heard them on tv doing various things.
Now I think Ovett is the man, and Coe can sure be an asswipe at times.
Ovett in his book made a famous line: "It wat the WAY that he said it"...referring to Coe's "good" remark when Ovett told him he was third in the Moscow 1500. He mentioned that this told him everything he needed to know about Coe. A rare outburst for Ovett, and he never picked up on it again publicly.....but it is there in the book! And I believe it. And I trust Ovett, and want to be like him in my old age.
Also, Coe realises that he was an asswipe sometimes....read between lines of various reminiscenses, and he is almost apologetic - because he knows what is on the record.
Still - that was the 80s. We all move forward, right?
Just because it wasn't caused by the excessive pounding of the legs during training, and was 'an accident and completely out of his control' doesn't mean it wasn't a standard running injury. Quote - Jimmy Saville.
Running into some solid iron railings is not a standard running injury. I wonder how many articles, studies and running books have “running into iron railings” under the heading of “injuries”.
In Adrian Metcalf's 1982 TV documentary Ovett the man himself can be seen recovering from the knee injury after surgery and physiotherapy
at one point he admits to coach Harry Wilson his running style doesn't feel the same after the op as it did before
and he even asks whether it is causing him sciatica
I reckon you can see a difference in his running style post injury
definitely by his later career it's almost as if he was limping very slightly - he wasn't as perfectly balanced as he had been
the tendon above his right knee was badly damaged in the accident - maybe it's not surprising
it would be interesting to see a scientific biomechanical assessment of his running style pre and post injury
his career stats reveal a big difference pre and post injury
pre 1982 he won Euro, Olympic and two World Cup gold medals plus two x the mile, two x 1500m and one x two mile world records
post 1982 it was just the single Commonwealth 5000m gold and 1 x 1500m WR
When I saw Ovett often wave to the crowd in the home straight - to show how easy winning was for him - I thought he was a conceited tosser. He even lost a race once because of that kind of egotistical showboating (there's a vintage YouTube clip titled appropriately "Arrogance Personified".) Working class hero - sure. But a hero with a big head. I enjoyed watching him getting buried by Coe's incredible finish in the Moscow 1500m. The 800 win was a fluke. Poor tactics by Coe, who was ultimately the more talented runner. He proved it in the 1500 final. Twice.
Skuj wrote:
Very interesting reads.
In 84 I read Coe's book and went nuts. I wanted to be just like Coe. I loved the training methods. He was my hero. And Ovett was a bad bad man. It said so in the book, really.
Years later I read Ovett's book, and the one by Harry Wilson, and spoke to someone who knew them both.....and then I watched and heard them on tv doing various things.
Now I think Ovett is the man, and Coe can sure be an asswipe at times.
Ovett in his book made a famous line: "It wat the WAY that he said it"...referring to Coe's "good" remark when Ovett told him he was third in the Moscow 1500. He mentioned that this told him everything he needed to know about Coe. A rare outburst for Ovett, and he never picked up on it again publicly.....but it is there in the book! And I believe it. And I trust Ovett, and want to be like him in my old age.
Also, Coe realises that he was an asswipe sometimes....read between lines of various reminiscenses, and he is almost apologetic - because he knows what is on the record.
Still - that was the 80s. We all move forward, right?
As a young club runner from the 80s, Ovett was an immense inspiration. He always turned up to events and gave a fantastic show. Coe was often listed for those same races but would always pull out with some excuse or another. Nevertheless, both were genuine sportsmen and as a youth of the time, I looked up to them as men.
He ran fast again after that but never was the same. Before that incident he was superb tactically, always in the right place and knowing he had more cards than anyone else. After that he often seemed lost in the crowd, such as in the 1983 WC 1500, and didn't have that burst or that confidence.
I do wish he'd been more motivated for the 1500 in 1980, to get the double, and I do wish we'd seen more of what he could have done in the 5k.
I don't quite understand why he had such breathing problems in Los Angeles in 1984 or was so impacted by the heat in the 1986 EC 5k(?) -- both seemed to be out of nowhere.
1955 wrote:
He ran fast again after that but never was the same. Before that incident he was superb tactically, always in the right place and knowing he had more cards than anyone else. After that he often seemed lost in the crowd, such as in the 1983 WC 1500, and didn't have that burst or that confidence.
I do wish he'd been more motivated for the 1500 in 1980, to get the double, and I do wish we'd seen more of what he could have done in the 5k.
I don't quite understand why he had such breathing problems in Los Angeles in 1984 or was so impacted by the heat in the 1986 EC 5k(?) -- both seemed to be out of nowhere.
It wasn't lack of motivation that saw him lose the 1500 in Moscow. It was his favoured distance. What better opportunity to prove his superiority at the longer distance over his greatest rival, than in the Olympic final? But, put to that test, he came up short. By a margin. He had no chance of beating Coe in that race. And Straub rubbed salt into the wound. All these "what ifs" about Ovett merely confirm that he is overrated by his fans.