Ovett was still breaking records as far late as 1983 (wr for 1500m). He never really fell off until 1987. He won the commonwealth games at 5k. Crazy, because he won a European champs medal in 1974 and he was still medaling in majors in 1986.
Yeah, and it's even more impressive when you consider the railing accident at the end of 81, and then the illness during LA.
He even had a few good results in 87, but the heat in Rome was too much for him. Then he decided to drop back down to 1500m, which was going to be difficult at nearly 33 and 14 years at the top. And even then, he wasn't far off a place on the GB 1500 team.
Not sure how objective a guy who calls himself Coevette, ostensibly because he is enamored with Coe and Ovett, can be about either Coe or Ovett.
Hoady will be back in this thread, claiming that Boit and Mannyboi would have dominated both the 76 and 80 Olympics. Of course, he will use a different 5 random letter username, because he's ashamed of his own idiocy.
Not sure how objective a guy who calls himself Coevette, ostensibly because he is enamored with Coe and Ovett, can be about either Coe or Ovett.
(You suspected wrong, Coevett. You were also wrong about Van Damme's death (76, not 77), their age (Van Damme almost 20 months older, not around same age), names (Wullbeck) and so much more).
And who do you think has started this thread? When 14 minutes after the initial post Coevett jumps in?
Hoad talking to himself in this post. The point about Van Damme was that Ovett had always beaten Van Damme until Montreal despite being younger, so thanks for confirming it by pointing out that he was nearly two years older than Ovett.
Back up the Olympics one year overall and Rodgers wins the marathon in Moscow.
People don't mention Rodgers much here. I remember lining up next to him in a 10k road race and thinking how tiny and fragile he looked which was one of his advantages as he could literally float over the ground.
Great analysis! Thanks for that, and the Ovett/Coe anecdote.
Real shame Walker developed injury problems after Montreal (I think they might have started even before). Otherwise, he would have had some famous battles with the two Brits in the following years.
Yeah it was - he really started having issues with his calf muscles and achilles and it was even before Montreal. You know a lot of these guys were just doing a lot of training and hard training and in particular the mindset of "running through stuff" ended up getting a lot of them in trouble long term (like it did Walker). I mean he ran 3.49.75 in 75 at age 23 and then 3.49.08 in 82 at age 30. Impossible to think that somewhere in between that in his absolute peak years he wouldn't have been capable of times in the low 48's, high 47's like Coe and Ovett were. But as you said, he just couldn't figure out how to get healthy.
I was told Walker started training for the 5,000 before the 84 Los Angeles games, that he moved to Southern California (as did many other athletes) to prepare for it.