Sebastian Coe vs Said Aouita - 1500/mile race - Who would win?

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Star wrote:

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Coevett wrote:

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Star wrote:

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Schempp wrote:

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ukathleticscoach wrote:

Check the 1984 Olympic 1500m entries and see what they both thought.

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Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

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Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.
Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

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Nope. Not many people think that Coe peaked in 1986. He ran his pb in 86 after his dad was furious at him for running a bad race in the 1500 in Stuttgart. I think I remember reading that he told Seb something like 'now go out and run the definitive 1500m of your life'.

Coe had bad pacing when he was at his peak in 81, and before. I think in his autobiography he claims that there were a couple of times he could have run at least 3:28 with decent pacing and quite a few here agree with that.

He did reach his peak again, or close to it in the 1500 in LA and Zurich. Unfortunately the pacing was off yet again in Zurich post LA,but he looked capable of running well under 3:30 that night, as his performance in LA suggested also.

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In 1989, Coe was ranked #5 in the world in the 1500 and #8 in the world in the 800.
So, he was world class in 1989 and ran his lifetime PR in 1986 and was champ in 1980 and 1984.
It seems like 1985 (Aouita's 1500 PR) would be a sweet spot for them racing each other in their respective primes.
There is definitely a venn diagram where their peak abilities coincide.

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Star wrote:

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Coevett wrote:

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Star wrote:

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Schempp wrote:

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ukathleticscoach wrote:

Check the 1984 Olympic 1500m entries and see what they both thought.

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Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

---

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.
Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

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Nope. Not many people think that Coe peaked in 1986. He ran his pb in 86 after his dad was furious at him for running a bad race in the 1500 in Stuttgart. I think I remember reading that he told Seb something like 'now go out and run the definitive 1500m of your life'.

Coe had bad pacing when he was at his peak in 81, and before. I think in his autobiography he claims that there were a couple of times he could have run at least 3:28 with decent pacing and quite a few here agree with that.

He did reach his peak again, or close to it in the 1500 in LA and Zurich. Unfortunately the pacing was off yet again in Zurich post LA,but he looked capable of running well under 3:30 that night, as his performance in LA suggested also.

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In 1989, Coe was ranked #5 in the world in the 1500 and #8 in the world in the 800.
So, he was world class in 1989 and ran his lifetime PR in 1986 and was champ in 1980 and 1984.
It seems like 1985 (Aouita's 1500 PR) would be a sweet spot for them racing each other in their respective primes.
There is definitely a venn diagram where their peak abilities coincide.

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Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

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Roy Race wrote:

Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

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Pius VIII wrote:

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Star wrote:

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Schempp wrote:

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ukathleticscoach wrote:

Check the 1984 Olympic 1500m entries and see what they both thought.

---

Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

---

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.
Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

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Wasn't Sebastian Coe at his absolute competitive peak in 1981?

Coe's 1981 mile WR run in Brussels was sublime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFkEJ3v8AW8&t=285s

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Coeva wrote:

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Roy Race wrote:

Coe's 1985 season could have been so much better. This was the year he ran 1:44.0 solo at the Middlesex County Champs in May, the fastest he had ever run at that time of the season. Without the back injury 1985 may well have been his best-ever season. Cram, Aouita and Coe over 1500m would have been some race.

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Cram, Coe and Aouita in 1985 over 1500m.

Cram wins.

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It's interesting to note that in 1988, Aouita appeared to lose some of his endurance in training for the 800m.

He recorded his slowest 1500 and Mile times that year since his sudden 'breakthrough' in 1983 - that is, his slowest times for six years. He ran a mile three times and didn't manage to break 3:50, and only ran a 3:32.69 1500m season best, and even more tellingly, 3:35.74 was his second best time in 88.

Every season before that he was training for the 5000m (apart from 83), and yet managed to runmuch faster 1500 and mile times.

It makes me wonder again how serious the injury was that he allegedly picked up in the 800m in Seoul, and how much he simply realized he wasn't in shape for the 1500m at 100%, let alone 99%.

His times would suggest that in 88, he was essentially training as an 800m runner. I wonder how many all time great 1500m runners would have been able to match Aouita's 1:43.9 if they had devoted an entire year to training for the 800m? I would say just about all of them.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/morocco/said-aouita-91

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SaRchOOoo wrote:

You're right, 1988 was a comical low point regarding PED penetration onto the Olympic rostrum, and into the finals. BenJo got all the headlines but 6 out of the 8 M100 finalists tested positive during their careers.

But the M and W400 were the most absurd of all. Look at bulky Darren Clark running 44.3 in his races and tell me, no PEDs! But they weren't all busted.

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HandTimed wrote:

It's interesting to note that in 1988, Aouita appeared to lose some of his endurance in training for the 800m.

He recorded his slowest 1500 and Mile times that year since his sudden 'breakthrough' in 1983 - that is, his slowest times for six years. He ran a mile three times and didn't manage to break 3:50, and only ran a 3:32.69 1500m season best, and even more tellingly, 3:35.74 was his second best time in 88.

Every season before that he was training for the 5000m (apart from 83), and yet managed to runmuch faster 1500 and mile times.

It makes me wonder again how serious the injury was that he allegedly picked up in the 800m in Seoul, and how much he simply realized he wasn't in shape for the 1500m at 100%, let alone 99%.

His times would suggest that in 88, he was essentially training as an 800m runner. I wonder how many all time great 1500m runners would have been able to match Aouita's 1:43.9 if they had devoted an entire year to training for the 800m? I would say just about all of them.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/morocco/said-aouita-91

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Gert Fredriksson wrote:

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HandTimed wrote:

It's interesting to note that in 1988, Aouita appeared to lose some of his endurance in training for the 800m.

He recorded his slowest 1500 and Mile times that year since his sudden 'breakthrough' in 1983 - that is, his slowest times for six years. He ran a mile three times and didn't manage to break 3:50, and only ran a 3:32.69 1500m season best, and even more tellingly, 3:35.74 was his second best time in 88.

Every season before that he was training for the 5000m (apart from 83), and yet managed to runmuch faster 1500 and mile times.

It makes me wonder again how serious the injury was that he allegedly picked up in the 800m in Seoul, and how much he simply realized he wasn't in shape for the 1500m at 100%, let alone 99%.

His times would suggest that in 88, he was essentially training as an 800m runner. I wonder how many all time great 1500m runners would have been able to match Aouita's 1:43.9 if they had devoted an entire year to training for the 800m? I would say just about all of them.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/morocco/said-aouita-91

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Aouita did however break the 3000m WR – 7:29.45 in 1989 though.

Actually he smashed the WR.

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Gert Fredriksson wrote:

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HandTimed wrote:

It's interesting to note that in 1988, Aouita appeared to lose some of his endurance in training for the 800m.

He recorded his slowest 1500 and Mile times that year since his sudden 'breakthrough' in 1983 - that is, his slowest times for six years. He ran a mile three times and didn't manage to break 3:50, and only ran a 3:32.69 1500m season best, and even more tellingly, 3:35.74 was his second best time in 88.

Every season before that he was training for the 5000m (apart from 83), and yet managed to runmuch faster 1500 and mile times.

It makes me wonder again how serious the injury was that he allegedly picked up in the 800m in Seoul, and how much he simply realized he wasn't in shape for the 1500m at 100%, let alone 99%.

His times would suggest that in 88, he was essentially training as an 800m runner. I wonder how many all time great 1500m runners would have been able to match Aouita's 1:43.9 if they had devoted an entire year to training for the 800m? I would say just about all of them.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/morocco/said-aouita-91

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Aouita did however break the 3000m WR – 7:29.45 in 1989 though.

Actually he smashed the WR.

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The reason Coe didn't run more very, very fast 800m times was due to the simple fact that Ovett (and Maree etc) kept running fast 1500m/mile times and meet directors enticed him to take the records back.

Even 9 - 5 is too difficult for Coedeppe. Really, he can't get the most easy numbers correct (in most cases he obviously don't even want to list correct numbers). Really astonishing what an crude ideology can do with some weak mind. This Coedeppe continous to list wrong "facts" for only one reason, to "support" his idol Coe. Strange.

That 1981 mile world record did not indicate a great potential to go a lot faster, in so far as they didn't go out extremely fast and he got pacing to almost 1100m by Byers. 54.8/1:52.67 for Byers in the lead, then about 58.2 and 56.3 for Coe.
Cram closed in 53 in his world record. Coe, though he looked great, didn't seem to have a huge amount left that day.

However he got to that point, Aouita with whatever legal and illegal help he received, and I'm sure that he was blood doping, taking steroids, and possibly even taking EPO in one of its trial phases in the mid to late 1980s, was magnificent at his best, with 4 simultaneous world records across 1500m, 2000m, 3000m, and 5000m, being the 2nd man under 3:30, the first under 7:30, and the first under 13. He ended up about 6/10 of a second outside of Cram's mile wr.

From Wiki: "Synthetic EPO was first successfully used to correct anemia in 1987.[26] In 1985, Lin et al isolated the human erythropoietin gene from a genomic phage library and used it to produce EPO.[27] In 1989, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone Epogen for use in certain anemias.[28]"

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zxcvzxcvx wrote:

He ended up about 6/10 of a second outside of Cram's mile wr.

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zxcxcvx wrote:

That 1981 mile world record did not indicate a great potential to go a lot faster, in so far as they didn't go out extremely fast and he got pacing to almost 1100m by Byers. 54.8/1:52.67 for Byers in the lead, then about 58.2 and 56.3 for Coe.
Cram closed in 53 in his world record. Coe, though he looked great, didn't seem to have a huge amount left that day.

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said88 wrote:

Even 9 - 5 is too difficult for Coedeppe. Really, he can't get the most easy numbers correct (in most cases he obviously don't even want to list correct numbers). Really astonishing what an crude ideology can do with some weak mind. This Coedeppe continous to list wrong "facts" for only one reason, to "support" his idol Coe. Strange.

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