'Invincible' 1985 Steve Cram outsprinted by Coe early season

George Atlas wrote:

Cram was amazing. His 1985 mile WR with a 25.0 last 200 after a 59 third lap is one of my favorite races of all time to watch. Big stride and powerful. But nobody in a faster race coming off that last curve ever had gears like Coe. In LA Cram would have had to take it at 300 but he let Abascal lead. Coe was right on the outside shoulder from the gun of every leader. Cram never had that acceleration at the end of a race like Coe.

Agreed. But Cram's last 200m in Oslo was 25.5 not 25.0. Still incredible off that pace.

Deanouk wrote:

jjjjj wrote:

that's a fun race. Cram was boxed, pushed back, made a start out, got pushed back again and so had used a fair amount of unnecessary energy. It was obvious at the end, however, that Coe had more finishing speed the last 100m. I think Coe with the proper incentive/pacing would have run 3:28-29 in 1981 (there was no incentive with the wr far slower): he was that good. However, it was not until late in his career that he went under 3:30 and didn't match Cram's times at 1500 or mile.

Coe didn't match Cram's 1500m time?

Coe's pb, past his best, was 3:29.77, compared to Cram's 3:29.67. How is being 0.1 slower, about 50cm, not a match?

In the same way that Jose Luis Gonzales matched Coe's mile time ...

Where I come from a match is an equal. Maybe by your reasoning, Aouita should have shared the world record with Cram when the latter was the first to break 3:30 and Aouita was just barely beaten. They were actually a match, by your logic.

12.9 at the end of a 3:46, with 53, is certainly superior to 3:32 with 12.6. But I make no argument about acceleration/final sprint speed, because Coe was trained specifically for that and did a lot of weight work, whereas Cram never did very high speedwork. Cram would run 220s at 800 pace, where this was defined by 25-26s, 440s at just 3:48 pace (57), at the fastest. This was the only weakness in his program, which was extremely well thought out and executed otherwise. He needed some faster work to prepare for a world record 800m and for the kick. All of his faster track work emphasized short rest, 15 seconds per 100m run, but a bit of really fast work with longer rest would have rounded it out nicely. Maybe some 23-24 200s and 54-56 400s or faster to peak.

In the event, Cram was 2nd in 1984 despite being ill and was great in 1985. He was also the inaugural world champion at 1500m at Helsinki when that was the biggest race since 1976 (obviously the Americans were out in 1980 (the Africans boycotted 1976)).

That his overdistance capability was as good as Cram's is nonsense. Look at their training and look at their speed decay.

Espana wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

Coe didn't match Cram's 1500m time?

Coe's pb, past his best, was 3:29.77, compared to Cram's 3:29.67. How is being 0.1 slower, about 50cm, not a match?

In the same way that Jose Luis Gonzales matched Coe's mile time ...

Gonzales was never as good as Coe. He had Cram in front as a moving target in that Oslo Mile, which makes an athlete dig deeper. The fact he managed 3:47.79, 0.46 behind Coe's pb, only goes to prove that Coe was capable of a lot faster.

In fact, I doubt Gonzales had the ideal pace in that Oslo mile himself, and was probably capable of a 3:46 low.

3:47.79 equates to a 1500 of 3:30.92, which is exactly his best time for 1500m, run in Nice behind Cram the same year! 85 was clearly Gonzalez's best year.

Coe's 1500 pb, set when past his best and not his best year, was 3:29.77, more than 1.1 sec faster than Gonzales and equivalent to 3:46.55 for a mile.

So if Coe is 1.1 faster when not at his career best than Gonzalez's pb, then it goes without saying that he was capable of faster when in 81 or 84 form.

Steve Scott also had a best Mile time close to Coe's and slightly faster than Gonzalez's, 3:47.69, but he too wasn't as good as Coe when both at their bests. Scott's actual pb for 1500 was 3:31.76, again in Nice 85, but we know from his Mile time in 82, which is equivalent to a 3:30.82 1500, that Scott was capable of faster than his pb over 1500m. If he was in 3:30.8 shape in Nice, then he had to be capable of sub 3:30 in 82 or 83, which were his best years.

And Mo Farah has left them both in the dust not even specializing in the 1500m.

jjjjj wrote:

12.9 at the end of a 3:46, with 53, is certainly superior to 3:32 with 12.6.

No it isn't. Not when the 3:32, which also had a last lap in 53, is in a Championship final and the 7th race in 9 days, and the 3:46 is a one off circuit race.

The 3:46 had a 58.3 penultimate 400m. (1:51.2 last 800m)

The 3:32 had a 56.4 penultimate 400m. (1:49.8 last 800m)

That is a big difference and worth noting when comparing last lap times. What is possible off a slower 3rd lap is not possible off a faster one.

jjjjj wrote:

In the event, Cram was 2nd in 1984 despite being ill and was great in 1985.

This is nonsense. Cram wasn't ill in 84! In fact his winter training had been uninterrupted. He picked up a niggling ankle/tendon injury mid season, which affected his training for a few weeks and caused him to miss out on some race tuning. In 83 he had missed 10 weeks training before the start of the season, and had been getting fit late, in races. In 84 he had not missed any preparation but had lost the speed sharpening races close to the Games.

There was no illness.

Coe had missed several months winter training, only starting to train in Jan. He spent 4 weeks before the Games training in Chicago playing 'catch up' with the training he had missed. So the idea that Cram arrived ill and having missed loads of training and Coe had arrived with a perfect build up is rubbish.

A telling quote came from Steve Scott, who being an elite and one of the favourites for LA, would probably know better than most what happened. He said, in "Born to Run" (1992):

"If I'd had the same mental relaxation as I'd had in '83, I might have pulled it (the 84 Olympic 1500m) off ...maybe not beaten Seb, who was fantastic that day...... I was afraid of Cram more than Coe, because of the way the year had gone for Coe. There was no way you could perceive Seb having the kind of Olympics he did. In discussions with Len Miller, my coach, I had said it had to be Cram to look out for. I know how to pick 'em, don't I! I feel Coe's was the best performance I've ever seen, considering the facts - his illness, his second victory, his ability totally to focus on a single event."

And this is from someone who was in both Cram's WR races in 85.

jjjjj wrote:

Where I come from a match is an equal. Maybe by your reasoning, Aouita should have shared the world record with Cram when the latter was the first to break 3:30 and Aouita was just barely beaten. They were actually a match, by your logic.

?

No, you are being pedantic. In a 1500m race, if 2 athletes have PBs only 0.1sec apart, I'd say they were evenly matched in ability. If they were 100m runners, then of course 0.1 difference is more significant.

When looking at the entirety of both races, Cram's 3:29.67 and Coe's 3:29.77, taking in all the factors, I'd say Coe's performance was at least the equal of Cram's.

With regards to Aouita, then of course they can't share the WR, but I would actually say that yes, Aouita more than matched Cram in his performance, despite being 0.04 behind. Overall, looking at the entire race, I think Aouita's run is marginally superior, BUT, and this is an important caveat, they were in the same race and the object is first and foremost to win, and that is what Cram did. He did what was necessary to win it, and for that reason his was, in general statistical terms, superior.

Gvl wrote:

And Mo Farah has left them both in the dust not even specializing in the 1500m.

Running on superior tracks, with better pacing and someone (Kiprop) in front as a moving target. Put a peak Cram or Coe in that race and they would have beaten Mo. Both were capable of 3:28 low, at least, on the 80's tracks, given good even pacing, competition, etc.

jjjjj wrote:

That his overdistance capability was as good as Cram's is nonsense. Look at their training and look at their speed decay.

No it isn't. Coe's endurance is woefully underestimated, mainly due to the fact he only ran 1 5k, a training run in the Yorkshire Champs of 1980, where he jogged a 14:06. That, and his 3k pb of 7:54, which again was nothing more than a 'rust buster' indoors in the spring, are not indicative of his over distance ability.

In 78, after a season of predominantly 800m races, he ran 4 Miles on the roads in 17:54, not only beating Coghlan (13:26 that year) , and McLeod (13:25 that year , but also breaking Foster's (13:21 in 77) course record (set in 77) by 9 secs.

In 1980 he ran 7.5km in 20:59, beating Cova.

He regularly did 5000m training sessions.

"But where did Coe get his amazing endurance from? The answer came to me in 1986 when I went to Battersea Park Track one Saturday morning with a 13:11 5km performer to do a session of 7 x 800m at 5km speed with 45 secs rest. The rep times were fixed at 2:08 because the 5km runner was returning to fitness after injury. Coe was on the track and came across and asked what we were doing and could he join in? I felt a little apprehensive that an acknowledged 800m/1,500m runner would not survive a 5km pace session with a short recovery. The 800ms went like this: 2:08, 2:06, 2:04, 2:02, 2:00, 1:58 and 1:56! Coe led them all. Afterwards, he confessed that he did a 5km pace session at 13:20 speed each week. I ventured the opinion that he could run a good 5km anytime. He agreed, but said he didn't like the event! It is doubtful whether any 800m runner before or since could have completed such a session in such times."

And Renato Canova is on record as saying what he did in terms of distance work.

"I remember Sebastian Coe, Always in Tirrenia, running in one day 30 km in about 1:40 (at 3'20" per km average, I followed him by car), and the next day doing an unbelievable session of circuit training in the gym."

Gonzales has medals in truly global championships not impacted by major boycotts. Coe does not have any medal from a non boycotted global championship at any distance.

Gonzales went to 3 Olympics. Coe went to 2 Olympics.

Taking into account major championships that both athletes could compete in (ie, Euros, Worlds, and Olympics indoor and outdoor) Gonzales has won 9 medals and Coe has won 9 medals.

Gonzales' 5000m PB is 13 min 12 secs, Coe's 5000m PB is 14 min 06 secs.

In the way that Deano compares other athletes with Coe, we can turn the tables we can say that Gonzales can be considered as a match for Coe.

All these guys were obviously amazing runners but equally amazing is the way that some people seem to consistently downgrade any other runner who was not their favorite runner.

Deanouk wrote:

Running on superior tracks, with better pacing and someone (Kiprop) in front as a moving target. Put a peak Cram or Coe in that race and they would have beaten Mo. Both were capable of 3:28 low, at least, on the 80's tracks, given good even pacing, competition, etc.

Deanouk, your logic is horrendous. Have Mo compete against Cram or Coe in their time and he would probably gain another 1-2" over them. Mo does not lose against other Brits. Based on your logic, Mo can run 1:41.03 or thereabouts since he his a superior distance runner than Coe with more Gold medals.

After reading all the threads - bottom line, Coe didn't have the b@lls to race 5000m. Too much pain for the prima donna.

Gvl wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

Running on superior tracks, with better pacing and someone (Kiprop) in front as a moving target. Put a peak Cram or Coe in that race and they would have beaten Mo. Both were capable of 3:28 low, at least, on the 80's tracks, given good even pacing, competition, etc.

Deanouk, your logic is horrendous. Have Mo compete against Cram or Coe in their time and he would probably gain another 1-2" over them. Mo does not lose against other Brits. Based on your logic, Mo can run 1:41.03 or thereabouts since he his a superior distance runner than Coe with more Gold medals.

Your post doesn't make any sense. How would Mo have been faster on slower tracks in the 80's?

My logic is at least explained. You don't have to agree with it.

Coe should have put the mile WR out of sight in 79. He went through 1500m in 3:32.8 which was faster than his mile WR split in 81. In 79 he was only 0.6 outside Bayi's 1500m WR en route. With more racing experience over the distance he could have bagged both WR's in the same race.

roughly 3 seconds faster overall with a similar close is hardly inferior even with slower heats before it.

you see injury and you call it inconsequential, yet it says on his wikipedia page that "In 1984, Cram's season was severely hampered by injury, although he recovered sufficiently to win silver in the 1500 m at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, behind defending champion Coe."

Aouita's run wasn't superior in any way. He was tactically dreadful, of course, but in the event he had Cram to chase, while Cram didn't even know that Aouita was coming until very near the end. Having someone to chase helps a great deal, as certainly Gonzalez knew. And the 1985 of Steve Cram was a great, great year. He lost only three times all year and ran in a very windy race 2:12.88, which in good conditions might well have been under Coe's record, he beat Cruz, who had beaten Coe in the Olympics, in 1:42.88, and of course broke the world records in the 1500m and mile. The 800m was run with a 51.2 opening lap.