Sebastian Coe v Steve Ovett

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Well clearly me and @platty7 didnt ;)

And me as well. Loved watching Coe. Blotted his copybook by coming out as a Tory tosspot, but he was class and elegance personified as a runner

 

[Eccles Blue]

Didn't Ovett retire to Australia? Ok, ok, I'll Google it. :-) ;-)


EDIT: I looked it up. He did. :-)

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I think your stance is a naive one. I don’t know your age, but anyone who has been following sport for a fair while should, imho, maintain a healthy scepticism whenever any athlete completely blows away their competitors by such a huge margin.
I don’t have any evidence of her wrongdoing - how would I have, unless I was involved in anti-doping or close to her. As such I’m not accusing her of doping, or cheating. What I am doing is raising my doubts.

In my opinion, changing her hurdles mechanics, esp when the barriers are so low in that event, can in no way explain her amazing underlying speed.

Anyway, I’ve been doing some reading too.

You’re going to have to do slightly better than 40 years ago!

Your “doubts,” in the absence of ANY evidence to the contrary, are libelous.

I’ll stand on my “naïveté” over your cynicism, until you produce a scintilla of evidence that the preeminent women’s 400M hurdler in the world is willing to give it all up for doping on the biggest stages in the world, KNOWING she is going to be constantly tested and is under a microscope.

Not only would her ridiculously successful career on the track be erased, but her unknowable financial gains from her on track excellence would disappear overnight.

I guess we can never say never about anyone, so what say you about City players? Dope or no dope? After all, Pep has “history,” right? Is Dr Cugat a magician or sophisticated doper or just a leading edge sports medicine physician, such that there is no-one anywhere else in the world City will send their players to?

P.S. Age 60…or FOC by BM standards.

 

[Gray]

Altitude for records up to 400m and for field events like the long jump. The tracks they preferred for middle-long distances tended to be the newer tracks with better surfaces. It's why the long jump, 200m, 400m and relay records set in the rarefied air of the mountain plateau of Mexico City in 1968 seemed to last forever.

One of the longest standing records is Jonathan Edward's triple jump of 18.29m set in Gothenburg on the 7th August 1995.

The city is 12m above sea level compared to Manchester which is 35/42m above.

No advantage of altitude for this record so a truly amazing jump by a really talented athlete.

 

[Gazza]

Didn't Ovett retire to Australia? Ok, ok, I'll Google it. :-) ;-)


EDIT: I looked it up. He did. :-)

This post was like a little self contained biosphere.

 

[Eccles Blue]

This post was like a little self contained biosphere.

Bet it made you smile though? ;-)

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Since this seems to be a big Sebastian Coe pile-on on here, let me just say, quietly, that he didn't actually go to a public school! (Was almost disappointed when I found that out). Not Oxbridge either.
And as Tory MPs go, there've been more dislikeable ones. Jacob Rees-Mogg, anyone?

By the way,I've got no real dog here. Don't particularly like or dislike Coe, don't particularly like or dislike Ovett. Great rivalry between them, and in retrospect, with Cram (and by the way, nobody's mentioning Brendan Foster, not in their class, admittedly, but part of the general group), it looks very much in retrospect like the golden age of British middle distance running.
Just posting in the name of balance.

 

[chesterbells]

You’re going to have to do slightly better than 40 years ago!

Your “doubts,” in the absence of ANY evidence to the contrary, are slanderous.

I’ll stand on my “naïveté” over your cynicism, until you produce a scintilla of evidence that the preeminent women’s 400M hurdler in the world is willing to give it all up for doping on the biggest stages in the world, KNOWING she is going to be constantly tested and is under a microscope.

Not only would her ridiculously successful career on the track be erased, but her unknowable financial gains from her on track excellence would disappear overnight.

I guess we can never say never about anyone, so what say you about City players? Dope or no dope? After all, Pep has “history,” right? Is Dr Cugat a magician or sophisticated doper or just a leading edge sports medicine physician, such that there is no-one anywhere else in the world City will send their players to?

P.S. Age 60…or FOC by BM standards.

There’s a lot there.

Well if you’re age 60, you should know better than to believe all you see in professional sport.
There is a history in many sports, and I’m not going to regale you with all the well known cases on here. The risk of being caught out hasn’t stopped sportspeople of the years from doing it.

Im not gonna comment on the specifics of City players, but if you’re asking me do I believe PEDs are or have been used in professional football, my answer is yes, I do. That’s my general view. I do wonder whether you think I have something specific against McLaughlin-Levrone. I absolutely don’t. I love track and field but there’s a part of me that retains a questioning point of view, when I see performances that are that much superior to anyone else in the world, whoever the athlete is. Same in cycling, which I also follow.

Anyway, feel free to reply back, but I’m gonna leave it there, especially as on lots of other topics I find myself generally agreeing with your posts ;-)

Fwiw, I do think she’s an immensely talented athlete.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

There’s a lot there.

Well if you’re age 60, you should know better than to believe all you see in professional sport.
There is a history in many sports, and I’m not going to regale you with all the well known cases on here. The risk of being caught out hasn’t stopped sportspeople of the years from doing it.

Im not gonna comment on the specifics of City players, but if you’re asking me do I believe PEDs are or have been used in professional football, my answer is yes, I do. That’s my general view. I do wonder whether you think I have something specific against McLaughlin-Levrone. I absolutely don’t. I love track and field but there’s a part of me that retains a questioning point of view, when I see performances that are that much superior to anyone else in the world, whoever the athlete is. Same in cycling, which I also follow.

Anyway, feel free to reply back, but I’m gonna leave it there, especially as on lots of other topics I find myself generally agreeing with your posts ;-)

Fwiw, I do think she’s an immensely talented athlete.

I understand your skepticism, but feel like it undermined one of the best performances of the Olympics.

The 80s were a different era and, while cheating and PEDs have become far more sophisticated, I think it’s unfair to tar her with a brush from decades before she was even born. That’s all.

Be well.

 

[mackenzie]

One of my close relations found themselves on holiday with one of Coe's half siblings in the 90s ( think it was his half sister). They had got quite close over a few drinks/nights and the sibling reminisced about Zeb as a child. Zeb had said "I don't know yet what I'm going to do when I'm older, but whatever it is I'll be very good at it."

Those 3 world records in 11 days were phenomenal. There was nobody quite like him, and although Ovett was a great runner too he wasn't in the same class