[quote]mid distance runner wrote:
Crammy was flying a little quicker than Coe was - your times confirm.
Crammy was 1.1 second under the world record. Coe was 1.7 over it.
Crammy beat Coe in the process too - Cram was fit in '85.
He was underdone in '83 and still won - 2 years of minimal training really affected him in '84.
[quote]
NO, he wasn't running faster at the FINISH, which is what you originally said. The finish to a race is the last 100m. Coe was marginally faster in the homestraight, by 0.2. Their last 200m and 400m times are also very similar. Coe's last 800m was substantially faster.
An athlete runs what is needed for him to win that day. Coe needed 3:32. If Abascal had gone harder from 400 out, then Coe would have run faster. The most significant aspect is that Coe was accelerating in the last 100m (it was his fastest 100m split), whereas Cram was starting to slow down in Oslo. In LA, Coe was pulling further away from Cram with every stride. That means there was unused energy there. If he'd needed a 52.0 last lap, he'd have run it.
As for Cram being unfit, that is a claim always exaggerated. Yes, he had injury problems going into LA, and he was short of a few races. That doesn't make him unfit! Coe had run few races too and certainly didn't have as solid a winter build up as Cram did. So it's swings and roundabouts.
You don't run 3:33 in an Olympic final and win a silver medal if you're not fit. I remember reading in a British newspaper prior to LA that he was in the same form and had a similar build up as he had before the Worlds in 83. After Helsinki he ran 3:31 and beat Ovett, he certainly wasn't underdone.
Cram's coach, Hedley, said on the eve of the Europeans in '86 in The Times, that Cram was in the best shape of his life, better than in '85. A few days later he gets beat by Coe and then the excuses start. The Cram camp then claim his calf had flared up the week before. Amazingly it was ok again for the 1500m.
I have no problems ackowledging that Cram in 85 was better than he was in '84, but then it's equally true that in Oslo 85 Coe wasn't in the form he'd displayed in LA. He'd missed a month's training and racing in late June/early July. So if you want to stick to your "Cram wasn't fit" routine, the at least be consistent and say Coe wasn't fit in Oslo. He was fit btw, just not anywhere near a peak.
Both LA and Oslo were very special runs, but factually it is wrong to say Cram finished faster, and it should be recognised that they were run in very different circumstances. One was at the end of probably the greatest series of races ever in an Olympic final, the other was a one off paced race. I don't think Coe had anything to prove when it came to running one off super fast times. He did that rather a few more times than Cram.
Cram is on record as saying that he'd swap all his other medals and world records for that gold in LA. Coe had 2 of them.