Best middle distance runner ever, IMO. And, he could have run sub 45 for the 400M if he trained for it. In 2023, I think he'd be the world record holder in the 800, 1500 and mile. Imagine the times he'd run with modern equipment and training methods.
Amazing . No special colorful tapes on his body, NO SPECIAL gel, no bars , you don’t see Coe sipping any special drinks the whole 45 minutes . No special socks or shoes NO EPO. 1”41 half miler ,3”47 miler , 2 x Olympic champion . BACK TONTHE BASICS !!!!!! True Legend !!! LORD COE👍
ALL that generation of Brit mid distance runners were legends, training back then was virtually self-funded and their times are world class even today with 21st century springy tracks and unlimited budgets. Today's athletes never even SEE a winter, let alone train through one.
Cesar Coelho I understand your point and I’m a huge fan of Seb, however, a man ran a 2:01.39 marathon thanks to all those things you mentioned. Pretty sure in this era no one could have even dreamt of running a 2:01 marathon. (Excluding the EPO, screw doping)
Shunsui Kyoraku Kipchoge ran that by training on dirt roads and living in pretty much a shack with no toilet and sharing a small room and just training hard, he didn’t use all the scientific nonsense
out of all the runners sebastian coe was my favourite he made running look effortless he seemed to just glide around the track and had great acceleration he was simply the best for me he was pure class
He probably helped him a lot to get faster in the mile, 1500 meters and 800 meters. If I was coached by Peter Coe, I wonder what I could have done, 1:39 in the 800 meters?
This video is pretty awesome. Coe is in my mind, the best middle distance man the world has ever seen. Never again will we see a man win gold 1500m silver 800m in consecutive Olympic games
What a great find, thanks for uploading! He was my hero as a teenager racing the same distances. I was lucky enough to bump into him once training in Nottingham. What an amazing athlete!
His form was great. I used to visualize it when I ran and say his name sometimes to imitate his style as best I could. Just doing that made me go faster.
As a Belgian, I find it a pity that at age 22, 2x silver medalist at the Montreal games died a few months later. I would have loved to see him compete with Coe, Ovett, Cram.
@@richardmilliken5651 As a Brit, I totally agree. Our boys would not have had it all their own way if Van Damme was still around in the late 70s, early 80s. Ivo Van Damme was a very powerful runner and like Steve Prefontaine, was tragically taken in a road accident. Alas, we will never know.
Wow...this is a WONDERFUL documentary. It is an inside look with great footage of his interval training on the road and hills. I have been a fan of the sport for a long time so to actually see this stuff is something else. He runs up the hill in a regular neighborhood just like us mere mortals! Thank you Mr. Reilly.
Yes he was . I so very well remember the magnificence of those '41 days' in July and August '79. Their performances were electrifying to watch. I was striving for a 'mere' 4 minute mile at the time and was so bewildered by the greatness of Peter Coe as both a masterful coach - and father . Never had a single conversation with mine .
I had the pleasure of meeting Seb's mother and father. I live in Sheffield and Sebastian parents had locked their keys in there car,my Dad was on vehicle breakdown down from the dealership where they purchased the car from.. Suffice to say my Dad broke in their car and got them on their way.. Nice people
He is amazing! Love how he runs his body looks so relax, beautiful stride and a kind of down to earth person. Love this video, thank you for sharing.❤️
Still the most elegant male runner ever. He seemed barely to touch the ground, and at his absolute prime, his speed in the last 200 metres was astonishing. With modern tracks and footwear, he'd be surely still right up with any runner from today. He's still the third fastest 800m runner of all time, and he did that 1:41.73 seconds on a track in dreadful conditions, running almost half the distance on his own and beating the field by over 40 metres. He's managed to take a total 1.7 seconds off the world record in the course of his two record runs over two years. That's approaching twice the improvement there has been in the record in the last 42 years in total.
***** Why do you think Coe stepped down after 2 years to help the British bid for the 2018 World Cup? Could it be that he saw the corruption and could do little to change it ? If he was embroiled in the corruption don't you think he'd have secured a successful British bid for the World Cup?
I hope I'm not being too bias but coe is the greatest 800-1500m ever. In any age his raw talent and grace and severe training would make him a winner in any era.
Man, training so hard on that road with traffic and breathing in that old exhaust when cars went by him. I think he'd be the world's best right now if he was training today instead of back then and had modern training shoes.
Sebastian Coe in the late 70's and into the 80's was the man in middle distance. Previous to him it was Lasse Viren. Long distance wise Bill Rodgers dominated from 1975-1980
What a fantastic documentary! Kudos to the movie's production crew and thanks to the uploader! Coe was a hero of mine as a high schooler running track, though I ran nothing longer than 400 after middle school, watching Coe inspired me to wish I had tried my hand at the 800. Where I lived in 1981, in rural Montana, it was difficult to find much information on Coe aside from what I read in the regional newspaper. This documentary fills in so many gaps and so very nicely.
Size doesn't matter...get your minds out of the gutter. Coe is a slight, relatively small man. He plainly and simply had the God given gifts to be an exceptional runner. It was Coe's good fortune that these gifts were realized and he literally "ran" with them! Never give up. 🇺🇸👍🏼✌🏽
A beautiful running style. I saw him in Central London 4 days ago. He was standing right in front of me and I got star-struck and couldn't get a word out. 😔
Respect for Scott. Suffered from being human in an era where they seem to come from Mars. Really loved the sport and went everywhere to race. Buy him a beer anytime.
I was an 800 Meter runner at Williams College in the mid 1980s and even set the school record which stands to this day. I ran a 1:50.3 800M purely on anaerobic and aerobic running training. We did ZERO strength training as you see Coe doing here 3:31 I suffered grievous injury trying to get under 1:50, which over my lifetime has lead from one compensatory injury leading to another. Now I see it would have been possible to achieve my dream of getting under 1:50 had I also added strength training. Ie, I wish I had trained with Coe for a season or two. His training was really advanced for his era, as were his 800M times.
I agree, but so disappointed he didn't face overt in Zurich in 1979 we had to wait 10 year before it finally happened in a grand Prix meeting., Apart from the major Olympic,world , European.a year earlier they destroyed each other ,that famous line by Coleman.in the European championship 78 , when Bauer won
We had to wait 10 years until they met APART from them meetiong in Moscow when at their peak!!!!!. When they met ten years leter coe AND ovett were well WELL PASSED THEIR athletic best
They never met in the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS..did they ..No definitely not...by 1983 illness and injuries had litterally DESTROYED OVETT AND COE by then...they were shadows of their former( 2 yrs)selves
Chemiosmosis and the understanding of what it can produce, is what propelled Seb to world records. Peter understood it, I understand it, the sporting world is still in the dark. I would love to see an NHL hockey team adopt Chemiosmosis, then watch them win their cup 10 straight years in a row.
The Chemiosmotic hypothesis involves ATP production and measuring the heat exchange while electrons and protons move through several mechanisms. I can go a thousand miles in any direction from where I’m standing, and not run into one person that can talk intelligently on the subject. The first professional sports franchise to discover this, will own their sport. The interesting part about this, it has nothing to do with running, it’s the heat exchange in the cell. I hope this doesn’t answer your question, I hope it makes you more curious. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I am not anti Coe by any means but an objective assessment of him would be; The greatest ever middle distance runner against the clock and greatest ever at doubling up at 800/1500, but not the greatest racer in a tactical situation. Steve Cram won more major titles at 1500m and Coe only won one at his best event the 800m. He was also fortunate that not all his rivals were present at Moscow 80 and Los Angeles 84 due to the boycotts and that Said Aouita opted for the 5000m at the latter. The selectors were wrong not to take him to Soul in 88 as though he was past his best he was still one of the best 1500m runners in the world and you should always take your best men.
Cram was more lucky when winning the European & Commonwealth of 82 when both Coe and Ovett were ill or injured. He also had no Coe at the World Champs in 83. Coe won both his 1500 golds with both Cram and Ovett in the fields in both. Coe's championship record over 1500m was better than Cram's - he contested 4 major races and won 2 golds and 2 silvers. Cram won the World gold (Coe absent), the European and Commonwealth golds in 82 (Coe & Ovett absent), the Commonwealth in 86 (Coe absent) and the European gold against Coe in 86. But he also contested the World final in 87 and the Olympic final in 88 and failed to medal in either.
@@deano27671 Deano yes all true. If Coe hadn't been ill and injured so much he would probably have won more titles - it's a lot of ifs and buts with all three of them and you could argue all day about their relative merits - it's difficult to categorise them. Cram did extremely well to win the 1500m in Helsinki in '83 as he'd missed so much training but Ovett should have won that race by a mile, pardon the pun! Ovett also fancied his chances strongly for Los Angeles '84 but his chest infection and the smog did for him. If Cram had been fully fit in '84 would he have won? etc, etc. I still think though that we never saw the limit of Ovett's ability. After Moscow '80 he seemed to lose some desire and then I think the railings injury affected him. If he could break the world record for 1500m in '83 in 3:30.77 when he was past his best he should have been able to run 3.29 in about 1980/81.
@@Ruda-n4h Ovett was never the same after the railings injury!!! Ovett & Cruz smoked Coe in the "80" & "84" Olympic Games in the 800m. Ivo Van Damme would've been in the mix if he wasn't killed in a car crash!
He should have gone to the 1988 Olympic, it was very controversial at the time, I remember it well. He had a chance of winning it, but barring incident would probably have medalled. He missed all the Commonwealth and World medals due to illness and injury that dogged him. However , I have never seen a more beautiful runner when he was in full flow, such a huge talent.
Its interesting to note that peter coe was never at his sons 800m world records.... he missed them ....they were never expected to happen ESPECIALLY the 2nd (1:41'73) in June 1981 florence !!!!!!!!!!!!! What A SHOCKER!!!!!!! And Peter coe missed it !!!!!!!!!!!!
As a proud Jamaican I find ur statement offensive. We pride ourselves on being the best sprinters but doing so cleanly because we love the sport. While there are many cheats , Usain St Leo Bolt has never been proven to be taking steriods by any international or local federation. I've watched this documentary because I wanted to find out more about Mr Coe I suggest that u do the same by watching a documentary about Jamaican athletic history .
I was not aware of that blood disorder. Why so much training on roads, all that pounding, and sucking in vehicle fume toxins. Must be Cross Country and grassy hills available. Great runner. Ironic not winning 800 m in Olympics. Super kick, because he had superior endurance at speed from high quality training. As discussed in interviews.
I feel the rivalry he had with Ovett messed things up a bit, same for Ovett the one who i felt handled it alot better was Cram he raced them both numerous times
Chris Weeks Low mileage, high intensity was exactly what Seb Coe did. Some of his weeks prior to a world record consisted of only 28 miles of running, all run fairly fast. Sure, not everyone can tolerate that kind of intensity and may need longer, slower runs to recover from harder workouts.
Averagebum Bum I’ve heard he didn’t record warm up and cool down in his training logs. Distance running has gone back to more of a strength approach in the us and is better than ever in my opinion
Chris Weeks Yes, I have read that on letsrun.com, but I don’t trust it. In the biography on Seb, “Born to Run,” David Miller wrote that Seb trained only twice a week prior to a university exam, a longish run, and a shorter faster run or speedwork (I cannot remember which now.) And Coe’s staple continuous runs were 10 milers run briskly at 45+ minutes. I do agree that the majority of runners may do better on higher mileage, with a larger base. And I too am excited about US distance running in recent years, with Alan Webb, Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Galen Rupp, Matthew Centrowitz, Jordan Hasay, Shalane Flanigan, Deena Castor, Molly Huddle, etc leading the fields.
You missed a part at 35. After the scene about Jazz it goes to the 800 he lost to ovett and then from there to his mum talking about wanting to drown herself and then to his victory in the 1500 to reclaim himself.
Excuse me, observers, maybe I was in consorsium of Sebastian Coe. Hoping get checking of the payment documents of winner gifts in MIR ( Museum of Indonesia Record ) in Semarang, Center Java ; National Library of RI, Center Jakarta ; National Archive of RI, South Jakarta . I am still single and live alone in my age now, 49 years old . Maybe any chance to get a sweet girl from UK ?
Great upload. Forgive the 8 bit music and the cheesey mum and dad bit. Shame he couldn't keep his pants on a bit more. When you are telling your wife you are popping out for a pint of milk it should be the truth.
Coe must have used some human growth hormone combined with some good training but with better results than the Germans, one must admit he had talent he was a good runner
No. Snell's fastest 440 leg in a relay was 47.9. For 400m that is worth 47.6. Coe's fastest 400m relay is 45.5! Even accounting for the fact Snell's was probably run on grass or cinders, Coe is a good second faster than Snell over 400m. Over a mile the gap is 7 secs! Again, on same track Coe ran on, Snell's 3:54.1 may come down between 2 and 3.5secs, making it worth between 3:50.6 and 3:52.1, still at least 3 and a half seconds slower than Coe's.
Snell, Walker, Ovett, Coe are the runners of their time & period of what they achieved as personnel goals against the clock and weather it was a world record a Gold medalist in their chosen event thats what was achieved at the time you cannot compare one against the other unless they are racing in the same event, Walker Ovett, Coe I believe they were in some of the races together and who won at the time thats what the end result of that race that showed they raced together at the same time. The name I have mentioned are still to this day are recorded the best of their time and they set the bar & standard of there era they all champions in there own right.
THATS WHAT IT TAKES,, KILLER INSTINCT, YOU'RE NOT HERE TO MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO LIKE YOU,,, COE ,OVETT CRAM WE'RE KILLER'S ON THE TRACK OF COURSE YOU HAD TO BE A HORRIBLE PERSON ,,,,BEING ABLE TO 8+300 IN 36/37 1min rec or 4. 400m in 49/50 2 mins rec,,,,MAAAAAN YOU HAVE GOT TO BE A BEAST ,,,,(horrible person) to achieve this!!!!!!! You art what you have to be at the top,,,nobody cares WHAT YOU THINK,,,,WATCH THE OLYMPIC 800 1980 how OVETT THREW PEOPLE AROUND ESPECIALLY DOWN THE BACK STRAIGHT JUST AFTER 150!!!!!!!! KILLER INSTINCT !!!!!!!!!!
Perfectly fine to wag the finger if there's something substantial there to base it on i.e Mr Salazaar's athletes Mo included 😂 but otherwise the comment is Empty! as it's based on ?? Nowt!
No, just one of those amazing talents that appear from time to time. Did you even notice that raw talent at such an early age? And, then that training!!
Imagine what times he could have achieved with modern pacemakers! Most of his WRs he was running by himself for a long way! Extraordinary he took a whole second off the 800m record and looked still full of running. The best middle distance runner ever - could win it from the front or with a sprint at the end. Incredible kick off pace.
Did you watch the video? He had pace makers in all his WR races. And he is not the best middle distance runner ever. His countryman Steve Ovett was more than his equal.
Ovett was not the equal of Sebastian Coe. The latter had two 1,500 metre Olympic gold medals and two 800m silvers vs one 800m gold and 1500m bronze of he former. Coe's best times beat Ovett's at 400 metres, 800 metres, 1,000 metres, the mile. Admittedly Ovett was faster at the longer distances, but neither were world class at 3,000 metres and above. Ovett did set 6 world records at 1500 metres, the mile and the rarely run 2 miles. But the 1500 and mile rune times were all beaten by Coe who set 9 outdoor world records, and in 1979 set three in just 41 days. Coe's 1981 800 metre world record, run at a track in dreadful condition, wasn't broken for 18 years, and he remains the third fastest 800 metres runner of all time, in a run that is 42 years old. What he could have done with modern tracks and footwear we can't say for sure, but he would certainly be challenging right at the top. Both were great runners of course, but Coe was the greater of the two. When he was at his peak he could beat a world class field by 40 metres in an 800 metre race.
Brutal training, that’s commitment . Not like the namby pamby pampered athletes of today. He just had a huge amount of natural ability. It’s so old school, his dad out there with a stop watch, what he achieved was stupendous.
