performance his season took a quirky turn as he
headed to Norway to honour a promise to run in
a meeting in Meisingset, where he won the 800m
in a modest 1:54.8.
The next weekend he dropped down to 400m
again to run a 46.87 PB for silver at the AAA
Championships at Crystal Palace behind Kasheef
Hassan of the Sudan. The next day he banged out
a session of road repetitions on the Rivelin Valley
Road in Sheffield and then travelled to Oslo gain
for a huge test against a world-class field in the
Golden Mile.
Coe was the slowest man in the race with a
3:57.67 PB. The line-up included Americans Steve
Scott and Craig Masback, Ireland’s formidable
Eamonn Coghlan, Commonwealth champion
Dave Moorcroft, European record-holder
Thomas Wessinghage, Scottish talents Graham
Williamson and John Robson and Kiwi runners
Dixon and Walker – the latter being the Olympic
1500m champion and world mile record-holder
with 3:49.4. In fact the only major name missing
was Ovett.
As Steve Lacy set the pace through 440 yards
in 57.8 and halfway in 1:55.3, Coe floated around
the track behind Scott. As Lacy dropped out, Scott
and Coe drew away from the rest of the field and
then, just before the bell, Coe drifted effortlessly
to the front before coasting clear over the final
lap to clock a sensational 3:48.95 with runner-
up Scott narrowly missing Jim Ryun’s American
record with 3:51.11.
“The early pace did not disturb me,” Coe
recalled in his autobiography Running Free. “All
day I’d been worrying about how I’d feel on the
third lap. I was prepared for it to hurt but it did not
happen.”
Setting a European 1500m record of 3:32.8
en route, Coe looked untroubled as he coasted
home, later saying he felt fear and panic not pain
as he glanced behind nervously in the finishing
straight. He need not have been worried. “It was
the mile of the century,” wrote athletics writer
Colin Hart.
Similar to the first world record in Oslo, Coe
headed to a quieter venue for his next race. It was
now late July and he stretched his legs with a
76.5 600m run in Spalding in Lincolnshire.
A few days later, though, he returned to Europe
to destroy a top-class 800m field in the Europa
Cup final in Turin. With a scintillating sprint
finish he surged away from his rivals, including
European 800m champion Beyer, in the home
straight and raised both arms for the final 20m in
emphatic style in 1:47.28.
An 800m win in Viareggio in 1:45.4 followed
before travelling to Switzerland to complete the
triple crown of middle-distance world records at
the Weltklasse in Zurich.
After taking the 800m and mile records in
Oslo, the 1500m was his next goal, although Coe
found the pressure began to rise considerably
due to the media billing it as a world record
attempt with the race covered on NBC.
Prior to the race, Coe spent a few days training
and relaxing in Macolin near Lake Neuchatel inSwitzerland and was not desperately targeting
a world 1500m record. But after his exploits that
summer it was inevitably promoted as a record
attempt and the organisers even stopped Ovett
from entering – encouraging Coe’s British rival to
tackle the 800m at the meeting instead.
Unlike Coe’s mile record, this 1500m was
painful. Kip Koskei of Kenya set a suicidal early
pace of 54.2 through 400m with Coe a metre
or two behind. Coe then passed 800m in 1:53.2,
gritted his teeth through a solo third lap in 57.6
and went through the bell in 2:35.2 and 1200m in
2:50.8 before hanging on to clock 3:32.03.
Filbert Bayi’s world record of 3:32.16 set the
1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch
was broken and Coe became the first man to
simultaneously hold world records at 800m,
1500m and the mile, although the American
Ryun had at one stage held records at 880 yards,
1500m and the mile.
“It was the only time I’ve gone consciously for
a record,” said Coe. “I thought, ‘go on, you’ve got
two so let’s make it three’.”
It brought to a close an amazing season for
Coe. He was named world athlete of the year and
BBC Sports Personality of 1979 and during the
end-of-season period he received so much fan
mail they blocked his door from opening. These
included one from a child in Czechoslovakia that
was addressed, simply, to “Sebastian Coe, Great
Britain” – and it still managed to reach his home
in Sheffield.
Still, as Olympic year loomed, his feet were
kept on the ground when he was being paced by
a friend in a car while training in Richmond Park
in London and the police stopped him for going
too slowly.SPOTLIGHT NOSTALGIA
Prague 1978: Seb Coe
and Steve Ovett were
beaten by Olaf Beyer
but Coe had not yet
reached his peakHat-trick: Coe broke 800m, 1500m and mile records