Forty years on from a pair of middle-distance classics at the
Moscow Olympics, Coe recalls complaining telegrams, Daley Thompson’s psychology and his opinion on the boycott
Precisely 40 years since the greatest two-act drama in
British sporting history played out at the Moscow Olympics, Sebastian Coe still recalls every sensation in panoramic 4D: the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain. Especially the pain.
“In the back of our minds we knew that in order to come home with at least something, we were probably going to have to demolish 10 years of hard, unremitting slog in each other’s lives,” Coe says, smiling, as his mind races back to a time of high intrigue, political boycotts and – of course – those two thunderous encounters over 800m and 1500m with his arch-rival Steve Ovett. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”