I think they were all clean, but your reasoning is pretty comical. Ovett's agent and the best man at his wedding was Andy Norman, who practically run UK athletics at the time from his police desk. He was also in charge of the 'random' drug testing of UK and foreign athletes at all UK athletic fixtures. His influence allowed Ovett to pick and choose where and when he ran (at home and in Europe), as opposed to the rest of the UK team at the time (including Coe), who were contracted to run a specific number of meaningless races at home, in order to be allowed to run on the European circuit. There have been several accounts of him purposely not testing more elite foreign visitors when competing on UK soil, while picking Coe almost every time he ran. I'm pretty sure that he'd have loved to catch Coe, as Ovett's main rival. He didn't, because Coe was almost certainly clean.
Conclusion, if any of the 3 Brits is likely to have doped, it is almost certainly Ovett. He had the connections to get away with it and/or stop him from being tested in the first place.
I reiterate, I in no way think Ovett doped, I'm just playing Devil's advocate to baseless accusations against Coe, from someone who has nothing to offer other than being an Ovett fan.
You're wrong. Ovett demonstrated higher level 200m & 400m talent from age 12 or 13. As Ovett trained as an 800m man more and more, Ovett's 800m talent caught up to his 200m & 400m talent. I know Cram was a non-factor in Coe's 1979 3:48.xx or 3:49.xx Oslo mile w.r. I can't comment on his p.e.d. use. I've stated my opinion on Coe and what it took for him to sprint 46.xx 400m.
I'm personally of the opinion that an athlete's performance as a junior tells us essentially nothing about whether the athlete dopes or not. *Maybe* if an athlete has a big jump in their 30s or later that is evidence of starting a doping program, but before age 22 or so, you're going to see gigantic improvements from tons of athletes for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with doping.
There are only a few things that I take as real evidence of doping:
(1) An actual positive test or being caught with EPO or something (2) Association with known dopers (in the sense of (1)) (3) (Perhaps) superhuman performances, although from reading this site I've become very skeptical of our ability to tease this one out.
Considering the tracks and the shoes, it was an amazing performance. We have shoes where a slew of HS boys will break 4 for the year and get very close to 4mins. But yet no one has come close to Coe's time in the past two seasons of super shoes. Coe and Ovett were amazing.
However, blood doping was common in that era and toxoplasmosis was very rare among healthy young men, while much more common among blood dopers, and Loughborough University, where Coe trained, ran public advertisements, which I have seen, for volunteer test subjects for steroid research during the time that he was there. That was where Coe transformed from a run of the mill decent teenage runner who would not be competitive with any of the top fifty American high schoolers today to a world historical athlete whose legacy is still being debated forty years later.
Can you name some blood dopers who developed toxoplasmosis?
Do you consider being English schoolboys 3000m champion and the European junior 1500m bronze medalist to be 'run of the mill'?
Coe ran a 50r 400 a 51 open at age 18. This is with multiple attempts between age 16 & 18.
I think they were all clean, but your reasoning is pretty comical. Ovett's agent and the best man at his wedding was Andy Norman, who practically run UK athletics at the time from his police desk. He was also in charge of the 'random' drug testing of UK and foreign athletes at all UK athletic fixtures. His influence allowed Ovett to pick and choose where and when he ran (at home and in Europe), as opposed to the rest of the UK team at the time (including Coe), who were contracted to run a specific number of meaningless races at home, in order to be allowed to run on the European circuit. There have been several accounts of him purposely not testing more elite foreign visitors when competing on UK soil, while picking Coe almost every time he ran. I'm pretty sure that he'd have loved to catch Coe, as Ovett's main rival. He didn't, because Coe was almost certainly clean.
Conclusion, if any of the 3 Brits is likely to have doped, it is almost certainly Ovett. He had the connections to get away with it and/or stop him from being tested in the first place.
I reiterate, I in no way think Ovett doped, I'm just playing Devil's advocate to baseless accusations against Coe, from someone who has nothing to offer other than being an Ovett fan.
You're wrong. Ovett demonstrated higher level 200m & 400m talent from age 12 or 13. As Ovett trained as an 800m man more and more, Ovett's 800m talent caught up to his 200m & 400m talent. I know Cram was a non-factor in Coe's 1979 3:48.xx or 3:49.xx Oslo mile w.r. I can't comment on his p.e.d. use. I've stated my opinion on Coe and what it took for him to sprint 46.xx 400m.
Cram was in high school in 1979. Probably why he wasn’t a factor in coes wr. He did win the English schools 1500 in 1979 though
1988 2 gb athletes tested positive at the Olympics (pre og trading camp) both were covered up. Neither involved Andy Norman…although he may have known one of them rather well
However, blood doping was common in that era and toxoplasmosis was very rare among healthy young men, while much more common among blood dopers, and Loughborough University, where Coe trained, ran public advertisements, which I have seen, for volunteer test subjects for steroid research during the time that he was there. That was where Coe transformed from a run of the mill decent teenage runner who would not be competitive with any of the top fifty American high schoolers today to a world historical athlete whose legacy is still being debated forty years later.
If you think any runner winning the English schools 3000 wouldn’t be competitive now with the top 50 USA high schoolers you are kidding yourself. Cram failed to win that title finishing 5th (4th was Mark Scrutton who broke Jim Ryan’s conference win record and won two ncaa titles)
Cram, now, was a great prospect. At 20, he ran 1:46.29 and 1:44.45 the next year at 21, but it was at the 1500/mile where he really shined early on. At 17, he ran 3:40.09 in 1978 and then 3:34.74 at 19,
1978 3:40.09 London (GBR) 27 AUG 1978
1980 3:34.74 Zürich (SUI) 13 AUG 1980,
and at the mile, he ran 3:57.42 at 17, 3:53.8 at 19, and broke 3:50 at 20. He was faster than Jim Ryun at 17 and 20.
1978 3:57.42 London (GBR) 02 JUL 1978 1980 3:53.8h Oslo (NOR) 01 JUL 1980 1981 3:49.95 Zürich (SUI) 19 AUG 1981
The 800 meter race seems to be the least effected event by super shoe. I think this is because of the true Hybrid sprint/distance nature of the event. Even now you have 800 guys race in sprint spikes over dragonflies or victorious.
Not much of a prospect. Yet, he's suddenly running 1:46.54 in March 1977!
You're a freaking idiot. You can't name any blood dopers with toxoplasmosis, so you point to an Iranian study on blood donors? Blood doping was and is autologous, to avoid the chance of infection, and also because it's far harder to detect.
Then don't even bother following this sport or this message board. Go and inflict your toxicity on some other environment that needs to be ruined. If everyone's doping, cheating, reactionary blah blah blah, then there's no point in following any of it. Find something else to do that's actually productive.
Not much of a prospect. Yet, he's suddenly running 1:46.54 in March 1977!
Coe gave John Walker and David Moorcroft the fright of their lives just after the Montreal Olympics in a mile race in the UK. Anyone could see his potential there, including the commentator David Coleman, despite him looking very physically fragile. It's not difficult to see why undergoing an advanced weight training program with one of the best instructors in the world would have helped him.
Sir John Walker finishing like a steam train to overtake Dave Moorcroft and Seb Coe in the Rediffusion Games Mile at Gateshead on 22 August in 1976. Big JW w...
The reason why the 800m hasn't moved on since the 80's, outside of a few suspect Kenyans, is because of explosion of wealth in professional soccer due to satellite TV at the start of the 90's. There are probably at least 1000 professional soccer players in Europe right now who could have been sub 1:45 800m runners if they had trained and pursued it from their mid teens, at least 100 would be sub 1:43.
One reason why Britain has experienced a resurgence in middle-distance running is because of the influx of foreign soccer players into the British leagues. One example is George Mills, son of Ex Egnland player Danny Mills. He tried to pursue soccer like his father, but wasn't quite good enough to get a professional contract. 10 years earlier it might have been different.
Cram and Ovett would 100% have been soccer players if the money had been around back then, maybe Coe too, or perhaps he'd have been a cricketer..
Regardless of what Flo Jo was or was not taking, it is more than likely the performance was helped by a strong tail wind (it was windy earlier in the day at least in Indianapolis} whereas that is not really an issue in the 800 m or 400 m for that matter. Coe's 1:41.73 was not really a fluke as two years before in '79 he broke Juantarena's WR with a 1:42.4 or so and also Walker's mile WR with 3:48.95 so he had years of great and consistent performances whereas Flo Jo made incredible breakthrough performances fairly late in her career.
1988 2 gb athletes tested positive at the Olympics (pre og trading camp) both were covered up. Neither involved Andy Norman…although he may have known one of them rather well
"Know" in the biblical sense if my memory serves me well...
