What’s your opinion on Sebastian Coe?

You haven’t got a clue. Synthetic EPO was not around in the 1980’s. First used in cycling in early 90’s, then moved to T&F.
UKA carried out random out of season testing from 85 and had in competition testing from early 80’s.
Not a single shred of evidence that any of the Brit middle distance guys were on an organised doping program. If there was, then why was it limited to just MD and the men?
Why weren’t UK women put on the same program to match the Soviet and GDR women?

And we are still waiting for some NZ guy to better Snell’s 60 year old time over 2 laps! Surely by your reasoning that makes him the biggest doper of all time?
Some people are more talented than others and someone has to be the best. Shoes have a disproportionate benefit the longer the event and that is why we see a lot more men having beaten 3:30 for 1500m than 1:42 for 800m. Athletics was also a much bigger sport in the UK and Europe (and the US) in the 70’s and 80’s than now, where a lot more talent goes into other sports.

Not very well read are you?
Try ‘The Perfect Distance’ for a start, where there is plenty of comments from the likes of Wessinhage, Scott, Coghlan and Walker, stating that they did not believe either Coe or Ovett doped.

Secondly, you are totally misquoting what Ovett said re Coe, and he certainly never applied that Coe was in some way doping. He alluded to the fact that Coe did weights, plyometrics, a lot of gym work and was regularly tested for lactic threshold and VO2 max on a treadmill by scientists. He was very open and transparent about that at the time and is quite commonplace nowadays. Ovett never used that system, hence his dismissive comments. He is on record on several documentaries (easily found on YouTube), for stating that he believed Coe was “far more naturally gifted than I was.”

Lol. Is that all you got!?

I most certainly am not wrong re those times given for a teenage Coe. The ones for 100, 200 and 400 (up to the 51.8) are totally made up. Again, I ask, show us the source ! Because I can tell you now, the only place you got those stats from can be found somewhere between Saturn and Neptune!

Aren't you over 70 years old? You are the biggest or second biggest S Coe find on this site. You should know how fast S Coe raced 400m when he was age 14, considering how much you praise the guy.

Those books by Peter Coe and David Martin PhD were not extremely popular. The books are difficult to obtain: Training for Distance Runners; Better Training for Distance Runners.

Read both books. It's in there in one of the books.

I asked this too. Where does the 14 year old 400m time come from.

Why are you pretending ignorance? I listed the books for you to read.

The really big change in Coe's speed came when he went to Loughborough University, and started doing weights and plyometrics under George Gandy. He had a tremendous vertical leap (oddly enough I believe he and Ovett were about equal on that score, Ovett naturally, given that he was an excellent schoolboy long-jumper).

This gives a flavor-

"Weight training, including barbell curls and bench pressing, was
complemented by both circuit and stage training (circuits require
exercises to be performed in rotation, stage training requires the same
exercise’s reps and sets to be completed before moving onto a different
exercise).

Plyometric work included box jumps which developed the remarkable
power, balance and co-ordination which Coe would become famed for as the
1980s progressed.

In terms of focussing more on mobility and flexibility work during
the competition phase of the macrocycle, Peter Coe’s approach to
periodising these often overlooked components of fitness was pioneering.
Much credit must also go to George Gandy in terms of his guidance while Seb was a student at Loughborough University."

In that respect, Coe and Ovett, both had explosive power (Coe through development, Ovett naturally) married to very high V02, which would enable them to performer very creditably beyond the distance that were their main focus (for example Coe beat Coghlan, McLeod and Spedding over 4 miles in a fast-time), and Ovett won the English Inter-Counties x-country (the the trials for the World x-country championship team at the time) over 7 1/2 miles.

He had several area titles as a kid starting in 1971, and in 1973, when he'd have been 16-years-old, he beat the very good Ian Ray (eventually Commonwealth Games Marathon Medallist, and back then already a schools x-country champion) to win the English Schools 3000m Championship. Same year he won the AAA Youth (under 17) 1500m Championship. So, while you are saying he was a moderate talent at that age, he was essentially the best middle-distance runner of his age in the UK. He ran a 51.8 400m and 24.35 200m that year while a 1500/3000m runner.

The following year he ran a 36.2 300m. and won a Junior International 1500m match over the very good Abascal.

So, I don't think that at 20, he would have been thinking of quiting. In fact the following year he won the European indoor 800m and ran a British record 1:44.95 for 800m.

It takes 15 seconds to google.

runnerstribe.com

Australia and the Men’s 800m – Part 4. Seb Coe as a Junior

@runnerstribe

An Analysis of Seb Coe’s Junior Performances and Race Selection Did Seb Coe avoid the pitfalls Australians encounter? Seb Coe, like Peter Snell, ran the 800m seriously for the first time at age 19.

Link:www.runnerstribe.com/features/australi...

The only BS was that some of the times I posted were slightly faster than his actual PRs.

He went from a 51 400m to a 1:44 800m in 2 years as a post pubescent young adult.

Classic projection. Elite track is an entertainment business. It's on the business to prove the product is legit.

On a lighter note, it's a fact that Coe was less than 6 feet tall. Both Steve Ovett and Steve Cram were 6 feet tall. This is what make them ultimately superior to puny Coe. To be anybody you have to be at least 6 feet tall.

You are mostly wrong about the EPO history and its usage.

While it's true that synthetic EPO wasn't available until the late 80s, methods to extract and purify natural EPO from animals were designed in the 70s. EPO was actually available in the 80s as a doping agent.

In fact, the IOC added EPO to its list of banned substances in the year 1990. It's easy to understand why: it was USED in the 80s (and possibly even late 70s).

The absence of tests until the 2000s means that we will never know exactly who took EPO, unless they confess. But it was available as early as the late 70s, that is a fact, that can be easily verified.

I agree with everything you've written and it's great to see someone whose well read on the topic. I don't think I've ever insinuated he was a 'moderate talent' as a boy, he just took longer to fully develop into a man compared to Ovett.

I found this in his most recent biography from 2012 - ' Like every other junior school, Bridgetown Primary (Stratford, where he lived before moving to Sheffield) had its sports day, .... and that afternoon I won every race I went in for.

My victories led to me being entered for the next level up: Stratford primary schools, where I won both the long jump and 60 yards dash. A week or so later it was the turn of the South Warwickshire primary schools, and I can still remember running in Solihull and getting third place in the 60 yards. At 11 years old (N.B. before joining a club or any training), I was the quickest in the school, quickest in the town, and in the top three of a large proportion of a largish county.'

And just as I stated earlier, NONE of those times for 400m or below are listed on your link for Coe at 12, 13, 14 or 15! The link only reitterates how few 400m he ran, which explains why he made a big improvement in his pb at that distance.

He didn't go from a 51 400m runner to a 1:44 800m runner in 2 years either! Totally inaccurate.

He ran 51.8 in 1973, when 16. He didn't break 1:45 (1:44.95 to be precise, which is more like a 1:45 runner) until 1977, EXACTLY 4 YEARS LATER. Coe was built like a boy at 16 and grew several inches in the 4 years that followed.

In the 4 years in between he didn't run another competitive 400m until 24.8.77, when he ran a 49.1, quickly followed by a 48.9 3 days later, (except for a 50.5 relay in 75 (aged 18) and a 36.2 300m, which is equivalent to a 50.5 for 400m).

This is totally in keeping with other athletes. Cram ran a PB of 49.1 for 400m in 1982 (aged 21) and his best 800m that year was 1:44.45.

From the link you provided :

Apparently, Seb came 2nd in the Yorkshire Schools 100m when he was 10 or 11, so he had very good natural speed

Yorkshire is the largest county in England.

No, you are spouting nonsense. They only cloned the gene in 1983 and
established that recombinant human erythropoietin can correct the anemia of chronic renal disease in 1986. It was only FDA approved for medical use in 1989.

The idea that athletes would randomly experiment with injecting bodily fluids or substances from animals before the medical community knew what it could do for renal conditions is ludicrous. No one was using EPO before 1987, when it was first available to doctors in Europe. The first known case of it used in sport was in the early 90's in cycling; despite the deaths of several elite cyclists between 1987 and 1990, these were never proved to be down to EPO.

So if the very earliest that it was used in cycling was 1987, the firts year it was available medically, it was certainly not around in 1981 when Coe was breaking world records.

Where does it state that EPO was used by sportsmen in the 70's or early 80's as a doping agent as you claim? Please give a link.

Oh. But did he go from 51 to 1:44 in 2 years. That fact that he improved marginally from age 16 to age 18 doesn’t negate the fact that 1) his official PR was 51.8, 2) he ran a fairly paltry 36.2 which converted to 50.5 and 3) he ran a relay in 50.5 which his dad says was worth about 51.2 open.

However you slice it, he was roughly a 51 400m runner.

Didn't know much about UK athletics in the 80s but I'm learning a lot on this thread.

To summarize what you all discussed and agreed on:

- Sebastian Coe was an average runner until 1977-1978

- EPO became available in British research labs and Coe, as well as the rest of the UK team, had spectacular progress in the 80s, beating East germans.

- The UK participated in the 1980 olympics, which the US boycotted, where no testing of any kind was done. They won plenty medals in middle D, beating East germans.

- UK Athletics covered up the doping domestically (as they did in the 2012 olympics) and struck a deal with the US: you get the sprints, we get middle D.

- In the 1984 LA games, the US covered up positive tests results from their own team and the UK's.

- Post 1990, EPO became available world wide, and the UK no longer had an advantage. They lost their dominance.

We have to acknowledge the extraordinary success of the Brits in athletics from 1975 to 1990. From 800m to marathon steeplechase and cross-country. I'd love to compile a list.