“IT WAS MY PERFECT RACE”
THE LA OLYMPICS ESTABLISHED SEB COE’S LEGENDARY STATUS, BUT HIS PREPARATION FOR THIS GOLDEN MOMENT WAS FAR FROM FLAWLESS
WRITES PAUL HALFORD
LOS ANGELES 1984
PICTURES: MARK SHEARMAN
WHEN Athletics Weekly asks Seb Coe to choose — from the countless races run through a lengthy career — which one he can look back on now and think “that was perfect, I couldn’t have done any better than that”, he pinpoints the 1500m final at the 1984 Olympics.
Yet, though he retained his title in some style, the build-up to that showpiece occasion was a long way from perfection.
The previous year he had missed the inaugural World Championships after being diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection.
Seb Coe bounced back from illness which curtailed his training to clinch his second Olympic gold in 1984
At the 1984 AAA Championships, with Steve Cram and Steve Ovett already selected to go to LA, Coe had been beaten into second in the 1500m by Peter Elliott, whom many thought should have been chosen ahead of him.
His 1982 season had also been cut short, because of injuries, and he won only the silver at the European Championships that summer behind Hans-Peter Ferner.