“THE BAR WAS SET SO HIGH”
STEVE CRAM ON WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO FACE COE AND OVETT AT THEIR PEAK AND HOW THE SEEDS OF A FIRM FRIENDSHIP WERE SOWN IN THE MIDST OF COMPETITION SOWN IN THE MIDST OF COMPETITION
Moscow 1980: Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and a young Steve Cram
RIVALS AND FRIENDS
I WAS first aware of Seb through
Athletics Weekly, actually. The first time I saw him run, I would have been about 15 or 16 when I went down to a meeting in Nottingham.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this little lad. He would still have been a junior around then – probably about 19.
Bear in mind there were no videos or things in those days — I’d only read results and heard about him. So my first impression was ‘wow, he’s only a little kid’ but obviously he tore the field apart.
He quickly moved into the senior ranks and started to make a name for himself along with Steve Ovett. The two of them were people I was already looking up to, even at that young age.
I probably got to know Ovett a bit better in the early days. It was Moscow where I saw Seb a bit more up close and had a bit more time with him but even that was difficult because he was embroiled in this whole scenario with Ovett and I was kind of watching from a polite distance! But I learned an awful lot from watching them.