You are missing a lot of 800m races, but these 'races' were usually meaningless international matches that Andy Norman forced him to compete in. For example, in 1981 in the week before the World Cup:
29.08.1981 ENG v. NOR v. YUG v. ENG 800m 1:47,0 (1.) 31.08.1981 ENG v. CUB v. SUI v. POL 800m 1:46,40 (1.)
They were probably just training runs for Ovett, and an irritation.
For context, the world best 10k on road at that point was 27:41 by Arturo Barrios, so the Olympic 800m Champion was only 35 seconds off the world best 10k.
Everyone has their favorite runners and makes up stories about what they would have done. Ryuns running 3:45, Coe is doing a 1:40, and so on. In the end the guy competed for over a half a decade and never came close. And it wasn’t like he was fooling around when Beyer drilled him in the last 100m.
Beyer was massively doped (confirmed by Stasi papers). Ovett had run a much too fast first 400m chasing Coe.
how fast should you open when you are going to run a 1:40 or a. 1:41. Right about what they ran. Going to run a mid 1:43? Yeah they were too fast. And if beyer isn’t doping Ovett run 3s faster? That doesn’t make much sense.
Again we can make up stories forever about how fast our hero’s could have run. Is Ovetts 1:39 better or worse than Ryuns 1:38 or Snells 1:37? Just don’t compare imaginary times to real one…..
Beyer was massively doped (confirmed by Stasi papers). Ovett had run a much too fast first 400m chasing Coe.
how fast should you open when you are going to run a 1:40 or a. 1:41. Right about what they ran. Going to run a mid 1:43? Yeah they were too fast. And if beyer isn’t doping Ovett run 3s faster? That doesn’t make much sense.
Again we can make up stories forever about how fast our hero’s could have run. Is Ovetts 1:39 better or worse than Ryuns 1:38 or Snells 1:37? Just don’t compare imaginary times to real one…..
The difference it makes is that I don't Beyer had even run sub 1:46 before Prague (and only did so again once or twice at most). There is a video on YouTube of him getting owned only a few weeks before Prague by the best Scottish runner at the time (can't remember his name but he is breaking masters records these days).
Both Ovett and Coe completely discounted him. Ovett basically relaxed and was preparing to do his wave when he suddenly saw Beyer coming past.
BTW, Beyer is a good example that contradicts your point. If Beyer hadn't raced (and been doped) in Prague, his career pb would be 1:45.8 or something.
We can all say our favorite runners could have run faster, but it's most obvious with Ovett given that he never ran an 800m time trial. You're judging his potential on the only very fast 800m race he ran at his peak, which was far from ideal.
This can be compared to somebody like Aouita. Aouita often claimed that he could have run much faster times, but he treated virtually every race as a time trial. We can be fairly sure that his pbs were an accurate reflection of his ceiling.
how fast should you open when you are going to run a 1:40 or a. 1:41. Right about what they ran. Going to run a mid 1:43? Yeah they were too fast. And if beyer isn’t doping Ovett run 3s faster? That doesn’t make much sense.
Again we can make up stories forever about how fast our hero’s could have run. Is Ovetts 1:39 better or worse than Ryuns 1:38 or Snells 1:37? Just don’t compare imaginary times to real one…..
The difference it makes is that I don't Beyer had even run sub 1:46 before Prague (and only did so again once or twice at most). There is a video on YouTube of him getting owned only a few weeks before Prague by the best Scottish runner at the time (can't remember his name but he is breaking masters records these days).
Both Ovett and Coe completely discounted him. Ovett basically relaxed and was preparing to do his wave when he suddenly saw Beyer coming past.
BTW, Beyer is a good example that contradicts your point. If Beyer hadn't raced (and been doped) in Prague, his career pb would be 1:45.8 or something.
We can all say our favorite runners could have run faster, but it's most obvious with Ovett given that he never ran an 800m time trial. You're judging his potential on the only very fast 800m race he ran at his peak, which was far from ideal.
This can be compared to somebody like Aouita. Aouita often claimed that he could have run much faster times, but he treated virtually every race as a time trial. We can be fairly sure that his pbs were an accurate reflection of his ceiling.
These threads that postulate what an athlete "could have run" dissolve into fantasy. It isn't necessary to dispute that Ovett might have run faster than 1:44 to put suggested times like 1:42 or even faster as being in Ventolin territory. Two seconds over that distance and at that level is actually another level of runner and, apart from the phenomenal achievement of Coe, is another era. Ovett was lucky the way the race was run in Moscow - it suited him tactically. He wasn't a lot faster timewise in any other race and I would bet that if he had been in the race where Coe ran his wr in '81 Ovett would have been nowhere near Coe. If he had been a 1:42 runner or better he would have run close to that time in his lengthy career - at least 1:43. Posters here typically forget that Ovett was running nearly half a century ago. Times like 1:42 were better than the wr in the mid and late seventies and Ovett's peak was basically over by the early '80's. Coe, Cram and then Aouita were all surpassing him, including over his best distance, the 1500/mile. Sure - he was a great runner and in optimum competitive conditions likely faster than his best times, including the 800. But it is simply dreaming to try to carve two or more seconds off the fastest he ever ran over that distance.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
But it is simply dreaming to try to carve two or more seconds off the fastest he ever ran over that distance.
People analysing an athlete's career and strong points is not "dreaming" just because you disagree.
They are not "dreaming" because I disagree but that there is nothing that plausibly makes him that much faster. You guys simply don't get that an athlete who competed regularly over the distance throughout his career did not have that kind of margin up his sleeve or he would have been close to it. Let's take 2 seconds of Rudisha's best, shall we - or Kipketer, or Coe, or Snell or Juantorena or Cram (or even Mu). But of course they all ran "time-trials". Bollocks.
how fast should you open when you are going to run a 1:40 or a. 1:41. Right about what they ran. Going to run a mid 1:43? Yeah they were too fast. And if beyer isn’t doping Ovett run 3s faster? That doesn’t make much sense.
Again we can make up stories forever about how fast our hero’s could have run. Is Ovetts 1:39 better or worse than Ryuns 1:38 or Snells 1:37? Just don’t compare imaginary times to real one…..
The difference it makes is that I don't Beyer had even run sub 1:46 before Prague (and only did so again once or twice at most). There is a video on YouTube of him getting owned only a few weeks before Prague by the best Scottish runner at the time (can't remember his name but he is breaking masters records these days).
Both Ovett and Coe completely discounted him. Ovett basically relaxed and was preparing to do his wave when he suddenly saw Beyer coming past.
BTW, Beyer is a good example that contradicts your point. If Beyer hadn't raced (and been doped) in Prague, his career pb would be 1:45.8 or something.
We can all say our favorite runners could have run faster, but it's most obvious with Ovett given that he never ran an 800m time trial. You're judging his potential on the only very fast 800m race he ran at his peak, which was far from ideal.
This can be compared to somebody like Aouita. Aouita often claimed that he could have run much faster times, but he treated virtually every race as a time trial. We can be fairly sure that his pbs were an accurate reflection of his ceiling.
I believe in Ovett's book he said when he got to Coe's shoulder he eased expecting that Coe was going to kick again - which is clear in the video. Of course, Coe, whose father had told him to run the first lap flat out (trying to find out what Ovett had with a view to the future) was dead by then, and Ovett would have been better running straight past him, rather than easing, thinking Coe was the only man he had to beat.
Of course Beyer had never run that fast before, and never did again.
There's also no doubt that in this particular race Ovett left time on the table easing behind Coe.
The difference it makes is that I don't Beyer had even run sub 1:46 before Prague (and only did so again once or twice at most). There is a video on YouTube of him getting owned only a few weeks before Prague by the best Scottish runner at the time (can't remember his name but he is breaking masters records these days).
Both Ovett and Coe completely discounted him. Ovett basically relaxed and was preparing to do his wave when he suddenly saw Beyer coming past.
BTW, Beyer is a good example that contradicts your point. If Beyer hadn't raced (and been doped) in Prague, his career pb would be 1:45.8 or something.
We can all say our favorite runners could have run faster, but it's most obvious with Ovett given that he never ran an 800m time trial. You're judging his potential on the only very fast 800m race he ran at his peak, which was far from ideal.
This can be compared to somebody like Aouita. Aouita often claimed that he could have run much faster times, but he treated virtually every race as a time trial. We can be fairly sure that his pbs were an accurate reflection of his ceiling.
I believe in Ovett's book he said when he got to Coe's shoulder he eased expecting that Coe was going to kick again - which is clear in the video. Of course, Coe, whose father had told him to run the first lap flat out (trying to find out what Ovett had with a view to the future) was dead by then, and Ovett would have been better running straight past him, rather than easing, thinking Coe was the only man he had to beat.
Of course Beyer had never run that fast before, and never did again.
There's also no doubt that in this particular race Ovett left time on the table easing behind Coe.
The thing with these claims that confuses me is his coach, Harry Wilson, basically admitting he botched the coaching job for the athlete? If Ovett was really a 1:40 talent, getting just one magical performance (Olympics 800m) out of the athlete at the event seems like a huge missed opportunity. Yes, he did switch focus to the 1500, but even there a 1:40-caliber athlete with endurance should've been rewriting the record books at 1500 and surely not gone Bronze, 4th, SF in 1980, 1983, and 1984 respectively. I do understand that much of his prime was during non-championship years and maybe his approach wasn't best for time trials.
Still, I'm not sure what Wilson is playing at. It sure seems like Ovett was a 1:42 (low) - 1:43-mid (high) 800 guy maximally. That's why it would make sense to go more in on the 1500.
The difference it makes is that I don't Beyer had even run sub 1:46 before Prague (and only did so again once or twice at most). There is a video on YouTube of him getting owned only a few weeks before Prague by the best Scottish runner at the time (can't remember his name but he is breaking masters records these days).
Both Ovett and Coe completely discounted him. Ovett basically relaxed and was preparing to do his wave when he suddenly saw Beyer coming past.
BTW, Beyer is a good example that contradicts your point. If Beyer hadn't raced (and been doped) in Prague, his career pb would be 1:45.8 or something.
We can all say our favorite runners could have run faster, but it's most obvious with Ovett given that he never ran an 800m time trial. You're judging his potential on the only very fast 800m race he ran at his peak, which was far from ideal.
This can be compared to somebody like Aouita. Aouita often claimed that he could have run much faster times, but he treated virtually every race as a time trial. We can be fairly sure that his pbs were an accurate reflection of his ceiling.
These threads that postulate what an athlete "could have run" dissolve into fantasy. It isn't necessary to dispute that Ovett might have run faster than 1:44 to put suggested times like 1:42 or even faster as being in Ventolin territory. Two seconds over that distance and at that level is actually another level of runner and, apart from the phenomenal achievement of Coe, is another era. Ovett was lucky the way the race was run in Moscow - it suited him tactically. He wasn't a lot faster timewise in any other race and I would bet that if he had been in the race where Coe ran his wr in '81 Ovett would have been nowhere near Coe. If he had been a 1:42 runner or better he would have run close to that time in his lengthy career - at least 1:43. Posters here typically forget that Ovett was running nearly half a century ago. Times like 1:42 were better than the wr in the mid and late seventies and Ovett's peak was basically over by the early '80's. Coe, Cram and then Aouita were all surpassing him, including over his best distance, the 1500/mile. Sure - he was a great runner and in optimum competitive conditions likely faster than his best times, including the 800. But it is simply dreaming to try to carve two or more seconds off the fastest he ever ran over that distance.
Well, the problem is that you have been presented with a lot of evidence from his career, the concrete reality that he never indeed run a 800m time trial, plus a whole lot of knowledgeable people here agreeing that a ~1:42.5 was quite realistic for him, and yet you fail to concede that you are wrong. The problem is that you also don't counter any of the arguments you have been provided with, neither you present plausible arguments to defende your case.
Your only argument is to say "he was a 1:44 runner because that's what he ran in his career" which is as poor as an argument as claiming Jim Ryun's potential in the 1,500m and the Mile were respectively 3:33 and 3:51 because that's what he ran. It doesn't make sense.
Coe broke 1:43 twice in his career and these were the two time trial races that Ovett never had, this alone coupled with the fact he ran 1:41.73 should be enough for a reasonable person to agree that 1:42 mid (at least) is very reasonable for Ovett in a time trial race.
You have to understand that many runners have personal bests that are significantly weaker than their respective potentials, and these claims are based on reasonable arguments by reasonable people analzying their careers. This is just the concrete reality, your denial just makes you look delusional.
Be humble, look at how Ovett ran and some stats of his best races, and just admit that you were wrong, and that is fine.
People analysing an athlete's career and strong points is not "dreaming" just because you disagree.
They are not "dreaming" because I disagree but that there is nothing that plausibly makes him that much faster. You guys simply don't get that an athlete who competed regularly over the distance throughout his career did not have that kind of margin up his sleeve or he would have been close to it. Let's take 2 seconds of Rudisha's best, shall we - or Kipketer, or Coe, or Snell or Juantorena or Cram (or even Mu). But of course they all ran "time-trials". Bollocks.
Address the point: when did Ovett run a time-trial over 800m?
Oh, and to add that this has nothing to do with the title of the thread. Nobody is agreeing with Harry Wilson that Ovett could have run 1:40 (despite the fact nobody here knew Ovett as a runner as well as he did), the reason is that there's no evidence to suggest that from his races. The 1:40 claim is just pure speculation. Reasonable people look at the evidence, 1:40 doesn't seem plausible. However there's huge evidence available to agree that 1:42 was totally possible if he actually chased it.
The thing with these claims that confuses me is his coach, Harry Wilson, basically admitting he botched the coaching job for the athlete? If Ovett was really a 1:40 talent, getting just one magical performance (Olympics 800m) out of the athlete at the event seems like a huge missed opportunity. Yes, he did switch focus to the 1500, but even there a 1:40-caliber athlete with endurance should've been rewriting the record books at 1500 and surely not gone Bronze, 4th, SF in 1980, 1983, and 1984 respectively. I do understand that much of his prime was during non-championship years and maybe his approach wasn't best for time trials.
Still, I'm not sure what Wilson is playing at. It sure seems like Ovett was a 1:42 (low) - 1:43-mid (high) 800 guy maximally. That's why it would make sense to go more in on the 1500.
I think Harry Wilson is delusional about the 1:40 claim, but the most reasonable argument for Ovett never chasing a fast time over 800m lies on the following:
Coe's 1:41.73 is from 1981 and that really set the bar too high for the event. It seemed untouchable even for someone as great as Ovett was. His 1,500 / Mile world records are all from 1980-1983 period, so my argument is that Ovett just conceded that it was a record so strong that it was not worth trying it - what would he gain by setting up a time trial race at the peak of his powers and run a ~1:42.3 ? That would not be even a National Record anymore. It is well documented that he didn't have the personality of chasing records, it was not his thing as much as winning was, so if a record seemed out of reach, Ovett was not the right personality to test how close he would be from that record.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
I think Harry Wilson is delusional about the 1:40 claim, but the most reasonable argument for Ovett never chasing a fast time over 800m lies on the following:
Coe's 1:41.73 is from 1981 and that really set the bar too high for the event. It seemed untouchable even for someone as great as Ovett was. His 1,500 / Mile world records are all from 1980-1983 period, so my argument is that Ovett just conceded that it was a record so strong that it was not worth trying it - what would he gain by setting up a time trial race at the peak of his powers and run a ~1:42.3 ? That would not be even a National Record anymore. It is well documented that he didn't have the personality of chasing records, it was not his thing as much as winning was, so if a record seemed out of reach, Ovett was not the right personality to test how close he would be from that record.
No, I totally get that. But with that understanding, it is silly of the coach to throw out a fanciful time. It reminds me of Jimmy Butler last year claiming the Heat would beat the Celtics or Knicks were he healthy. Pat Riley responded by essentially telling him to STFU. And I feel like behind closed doors Ovett could probably relay the same message to Wilson. You can't accomplish what you didn't even attempt. To theoretically diminish the accomplishment of the 800m greats with a fake time is silly. That doesn't mean Ovett couldn't run faster, I think there is a wide consensus he could have. But he didn't so at the very least throw out a time that seems reasonable and not world-beating.
This post was edited 8 minutes after it was posted.
The thing with these claims that confuses me is his coach, Harry Wilson, basically admitting he botched the coaching job for the athlete? If Ovett was really a 1:40 talent, getting just one magical performance (Olympics 800m) out of the athlete at the event seems like a huge missed opportunity. Yes, he did switch focus to the 1500, but even there a 1:40-caliber athlete with endurance should've been rewriting the record books at 1500 and surely not gone Bronze, 4th, SF in 1980, 1983, and 1984 respectively. I do understand that much of his prime was during non-championship years and maybe his approach wasn't best for time trials.
Still, I'm not sure what Wilson is playing at. It sure seems like Ovett was a 1:42 (low) - 1:43-mid (high) 800 guy maximally. That's why it would make sense to go more in on the 1500.
this is correct, saying that Ovett wasn't as fast as the great Peter Elliot isn't creditable. Ovett after all ran 145, after an opening 55 ... beating prime Coe
just sayin your 142 isnt a stretch.
Wilson was saying if Ovett was a 400 to 800m man, 140 was in play.
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