Steve Ovett Moscow the second greatest Olympic 800m performance (behind Rudisha 2012)?

calculo wrote:

it was boycott games, thooughly devalued

no Paige who won trials in fantastic effort off 1'44.53 off jog to 600 in miserable weather

he was slower than 1'18.8 at 600 & powered away to destroy james robinson by 1s+

Paige was in 1'42-mid/high shape in trials

there was also no Kenyans, there, notably Maina, who was reigning World Cup 800 champ & zurich-'79 winner & possessor of one of biggest kicks ever seen at the time over 800

ovett was in 1'42-mid/high shape in moscow, no doubt about that

More exaggerated nonsense.

No way was Paige ever in 1:42 mid form. He ran lots of circuit races in 1980 (where you have always said the rabbits went out in WR pace!), so why didn't he go with one of these rabbits and run a fast time. He never even cracked 1:44 in his entire career.

His splits in the US trials were 52.3/52.2, with a 25.7 last 200m. That's pretty efficient even splits, which for some is the best way to run their fastest time. No one apart from you would even think it was worth 2 secs faster.

Compare Paige's 25.7 last 200m in a 1:44.5 with Coe's 24.8 in a 1:44.5 in the Europeans of 86, when past his best and running 11m extra in that race wide on bends.

To suggest that either Maina or Paige could outkick Ovett or Coe is pathetic. Go fetch any example of either Paige or Maina running a 2nd 400 in 50.5 in a 1:45 or faster, or a sub 25 last 200m in a 1:44!

In short, Coe ran sh*t on the day. Doesn't matter how fast your last lap was, you have to cross the line first.

Ovett demonstrated he could clearly run much quicker than 1:44 in the right race. Everyone knew this anyway. Ovett wouldn't enter himself in the 800m at the Olympics as a 1:44 guy.

He could run under 1:43 for sure.

I don't think that makes this the second greatest Olympic 800m for me personally. Not enough depth in that final.

For a start, Rudisha in 2016 impresses me more given the circumstances

LOL. The arrogance to presume you know how Coe trained leading up to Moscow or to offer a different approach, is embarrassing in the extreme. To question the training of possibly the greatest middle distance athlete and his coach is a new level, even for you.

The 800m was the main goal for the Coe's and they knew he was at least in as good a form as the year before, when he ran 1:42.3. He arrived in Moscow knowing he was physically capable of breaking the WR.

Since when have you ever considered a 3:36.8 fast, even for a prelim? There is no way that such a time was any inconvenience for Ovett. I seem to remember both Coe and Cram ran faster in their semis in 84, and it didn't seem to affect their performances in the final of that event. Moreover the combined times for the 1500m heat and semi in Moscow was actually faster for Coe than Ovett, so they would have gone into the final equally effected by the heats.

Ovett was not 'hugely unwell' after the 800m. He briefly over-heated and then made a complete recovery way before the 1500 final. If he were unwell, then he wouldn't have been able to run a faster last 100m in the 1500 final (12.6) than he did in the 800m final.

ex-runner wrote:

In short, Coe ran sh*t on the day. Doesn't matter how fast your last lap was, you have to cross the line first.

Ovett demonstrated he could clearly run much quicker than 1:44 in the right race. Everyone knew this anyway. Ovett wouldn't enter himself in the 800m at the Olympics as a 1:44 guy.

He could run under 1:43 for sure.

I don't think that makes this the second greatest Olympic 800m for me personally. Not enough depth in that final.

For a start, Rudisha in 2016 impresses me more given the circumstances

Yes, I agree with all that.

I don't know whether Ovett overheated after the 800m final in Moscow but I know that he got completely drunk with his family and friends that night, as he indicated later, and his celebrating too much cut into his recovery and routine before the 1500m. That doesn't mean he would have won the 1500m otherwise. Coe was always ready for more, at least at the mile, in 1981. One other thing is that while Coe ran sub incredible 400 relay splits, Ovett was surely equivalent because he had run 21 for 200m years earlier. He never ran a fast 800m but his 1500/200 times and 50.5 close in Moscow indicate much higher potential than 1:44.

I met Ovett at a track meet in 1981 where I was running a marathon associated with the event. He was warming up wearing a pink Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. I was a nobody but he seemed like a good guy in our brief chat. He was amazingly smooth when he was jogging and doing strides. As for his potential and the what ifs thereof. In 1976 at Montreal he looked out of his depth. But a season later he seemed unbeatable. I think it's the World Cup 1500 where he runs away from the field and he looks like he's jogging. He had the speed and endurance. It's a pity that they couldn't get Ovett Coe and Cram in the same race all in good shape. That would've been someting to see.

There were two things - the knee injury, which required surgery, and after which he said he never had quite the same kick - and the damage he did to himself running with bronchitis in the Los Angeles 800m/1500m heats and finals, and which subsequently precluded him training with the same intensity as before (hence the move to 5000m).

Ovett ran a good tactical race - but that was about it. He beat Coe because Coe ran like an "idiot". That isn't a classic victory.

Far better finals were Wottle in '72 - say no more - Snell repeating his victory in the event in '64, on cinders, running a faster time than Ovett and winning by a much greater margin, and lastly Ralph Doubell equalling the then world-record in '68 to take down a fantastic front-running effort by Kiprugut in a perfectly judged and executed race. By contrast, Ovett's victory at Moscow was largely a botched race by Coe - which Coe subsequently corrected in the 1500m.

most of the OG 800m finals are pretty good. Wottle (1972), what a finish. Coe v Ovett was huge, although ovett got away with a lot of pushing. Cruz 1984 awesome. Rudisha a class above.

People always go on about Ovett's pushing - he was deliberately blocked in (along with Coe) by the two East Germans (one of whom was 6 ft 5 or something) who worked as a team. Coe stated this in a recent interview, and it's obvious when you go back and watch it on YouTube.

That might be true. I wanted Ovett to win, but I thought he was lucky not to get disqualified. Just because some work as a team should not mean u can push one of them.

Yes, and of course I was aware of these things when I made that post. I can understand YMMV thinking it a little silly, but I was just trying to make the point that the Moscow 800m represented his zenith as an athlete. He said himself that almost as soon as he crossed the line he was wondering - 'what do I do now?' as he had accomplished his life's dream. Of course the knee injury and the bronchitis were the things that totally derailed his career, but I doubt if he would ever have quite gotten into the shape he was in in Moscow (for the 800m, before he went out partying to celebrate and picked up a cold and a hangover) again, even though he broke more 1500/mile WRs.

Well yes, but the rules were different then. Pushing somebody who was blocking you was maybe bad sportsmanship, but not illegal. The point is the two big East Germans deliberately impeding Coe and ovett was just as bad sportsmanship, and I don't know, might be similarly judged illegal today.

You can clearly see Busse actually moving out to his outside to impede Coe before they break, and similarly Wagenecht - the bigger German - had been 'assigned' to impede Ovett. Ovett of course was having non of it and shoves Wagenecht away as he is trying to cut across him.

theguardian.com

Sebastian Coe: 'I was prepared to die with blood in my boots for the 1500m'

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/seaningle

Forty years on from a pair of middle-distance classics at the Moscow Olympics, Coe recalls complaining telegrams, Daley Thompson’s psychology and his opinion on the boycott

Open link

Posters here often belittle Ovett's achievement in Moscow, but him and Coe were up against two totally juiced East German monsters working together to physically wreck their race. We saw in Prague 78 how good juiced up East Germans were behind the Iron Curtain.

As Ventolin told you five years ago, Ovett has his gold. Fine. Golf clap. There were a lot of good 800m runners in the world who were not in the Olympic village in Moscow. Even if James Robinson or Don Paige would not have won, either or both would have forced Ovett to work harder in semi-finals. Kenya would have had one or two men in 800m finals, sometimes men we were expecting, sometime a teenager we do not know end up in 800m Olympic final. Ovett has is gold but 1980 was not a serious a high quality Summer Olympics for T&F.

But LA four years later was? The 800m moved on quickly in the 80's, and that was probably a large part due to hgh, which even if you think Coe and Ovett doped, came after their peaks.

Ovett's win was way superior to Wottle's in 72. If Ovett needed to work harder in the semis it probably would have benefitted him more than the others, including Coe. Do you not think the other athletes would not have had to work harder too? Also, the 1500 final would have been a lot quicker, instead of being an 800m rematch with Coe not making any mistakes this time. Not to mention Ovett would be motivated to beat Steve Scott. There was no guy around in 1980 who was beating Ovett that day in the 800, other than Coe in a perfect race.

The case for Ovett astonishes me here. He was a good runner but the most striking feature about his win in Moscow was Coe's ineptitude costing him the race. Ovett is if anything the master opportunist - as was Centrowitz at Rio. In a race where he got his tactics right, the 1500m, Coe showed who was still the better runner at Moscow. At Ovett's best distance.

Ovett's winning time wasn't outstanding, nor was the winning margin a level apart, and aside from the presence of Coe nor was the depth of the field.

Wottle's victory was the more remarkable, to make his way through the field from way last to take the leaders at the line, and Doubell's wr run at Mexico was a perfect race and as world-record equalling only ranking second to Rudisha in London. Of course Snell repeating his 800 victory in Tokyo in the then second fastest time ever - and on cinders - is up there. His time was also faster than Ovett's. (And his '62 wr on grass was faster than the best Ovett ever achieved). Then we of course have Juantorena and Cruz. All finals that ranked ahead of Ovett's victory.

I think what makes 2016 so great was the depth of times. Not only Rudisha's WR plus the times for place.

I remember Wottle's race, I was 13 years old. It was crazy. and Juantorena (I was 17) was just a monster. One thing about the 76 race- they stayed in lanes for 300 meters. I remember them talking about how that would turn the 800 into a race that would favor the 400/800 guys.

Correction 2012 Sorry

An unpopular view here but it still should be stated that given the doping that was occurring in the sport - and still is - there remains a question mark over the "cleanness" of the 2012 final. The women's 1500 was shown to be a doping disgrace but I doubt it was the sole offender. As much as I admire Rudisha I didn't trust that any runner in that final was clean - except, perhaps, him. It was simply ridiculously fast from the winner to the last runner. But he is Kenyan and we are seeing now what has proven to be endemic in their sport.

As far as the 1980 final was concerned it should be a given that anyone in that race from the E Bloc was doping. The others we can't be sure of; we can only guess.