SEBASTIAN COE was coached by his father, Peter, and his big breakthrough came in the winter of 1977, when he won the European Indoor Championship in San Sebastian, with a time of 1:46.54, which was to be his only indoor championships.

At the 1978 European Championships in Prague, it was predicted that the battle for the gold medal would be between Coe and his great rival Steve Ovett and Coe led the final through 400m in a searing pace but he was not able to drop his rivals. Ovett passed Coe on the final bend but both of the British athletes were denied the top honour by the tall East German, Olaf Beyer, who outsprinted the two British athletes with Ovett talso taking Coe’s 800m record. Coe soon reclaimed this in London when he broke the 1:44 barrier for the first time, with a 1:43.97 PB.

At Oslo on July 5, 1979, Coe smashed the 800m world record, clocking 1:42.33 and 12 days later, he returned to the Norwegian capital to post another world record. This time, the one-mile mark was beaten with 3:48.95 and then one month later at the Weltklasse in Zurich, Coe firmly established himself as the world’s supreme middle distance runner with a 1500m itime of 3:32.03, another world record. His CV was made all the more impressive with a 46.87 400m PB to finish second at the AAA Championships as well as a 45.5 relay leg at the European Cup. Coe was ranked first at both distances by Track & Field News and remains the only athlete in history to hold top position at both events. Coe was also voted as the unprecedented Athlete of the Year by Athletics Weekly and Track & Field News.

Back in Norway for the Bislett Games in Oslo on July 1, Coe smashed the 1000m world record (2:13.40), to put him in high spirits for an 800m/1500m double at the Olympic Games in Moscow. Coe was expected to win the 800m with ease but Coe ran what he described as “the worst tactical race of my life”, and that mistake allowed Ovett to get the better of Coe for the second successive championships. After silver in the 800m, redemption came in the 1500m, when Coe took the title with a 52.2 last lap, relegating Ovett to third and only 13 days after those Games, Coe attempted to break his world 1500m record in Zurich, but was an agonising 0.16 shy of his world record. Coe’s 1500m was broken just two weeks later by Ovett, who ran 3:31.36 in Koblenz.

Coe’s 1981 season was by far his most successful in terms of records. At RAF Cosford, Coe set a world indoor best of 1:46.0 for 800m, but this was just a prelude to his outdoor successes and arguably his most memorable performance of his career was that marvellous 800m world record in Florence on June 10, where he became the first athlete to crack the 1:42-barrier with a world record of 1:41.73. Coe is still one of only three athletes to have cracked the 1:42 barrier (the other s are Wilson Kipketer and Joaquim Cruz).

Also that year, Coe improved the 1000m record to 2:12.18 at the Bislett Games, and those figures stood until Kenya’s future Olympic champion Noah Ngeny improved the mark to 2:11.96 in 1999 but this still remains a British and European record. One month later, Coe set two further mile records. In Zurich, August 19, Coe clocked 3:48.53 at the Weltklasse Meeting, before taking more than a second off that mark nine-days later at the Ivo Van Damme Memorial with a 3:47.33 record. His only failed bid was a 1500m race in Stockholm in July, when his chances were ruined with a 1:49 opening 800m, which resulted in a 3:31.95 clocking.

Despite being beaten by Peter Elliot at the AAA Championships in 1984, Coe was selected for both the 800m and the 1500m for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles and for the second successive Olympics, Coe was forced into silver in his specialist event by Cruz, before returning to defend his 1500m title, defeating the world champion Steve Cram, to become the only male athlete in history to defend his 1500m crown.