In the build up to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, the narrative driven by the British media claimed that you were either a fan of Steve Ovett or Sebastian Coe. You could not be both. This distinction supposedly said a lot about who you were and what beliefs you held at the dawn of Thatcher's Britain.The two men at the eye of this particular storm continued their training regimes, untroubled by such concerns. Ovett ran endless laps of Preston Park in Brighton with his close friends. Coe trawled over hills and dales in Yorkshire, closely observed by his father.
Their divergent personalities were by now well established on the track. Ovett was the 'bad boy' of Athletics, waving to the crowd from fifty metres out when the race was already won. Coe was the tireless, frail worker who ran from the front to avoid the crush of the brutes behind him in the chasing pack.
Ovett was unbeaten for two years over 1500 metres. Coe was the record holder at 800 metres. Surely the medals at Moscow would follow suit?
Well, as Pat Butcher tells us in his informal, readable style, nothing was ever so simple in races between Ovett and Coe, who met on a total of just seven occasions during their senior careers.
And yet, their rivalry is one that has endured in the public imagination. Coe and Ovett are as well known today as they were thirty years ago. The triumph of The Perfect Distance is to explain that enduring appeal.
Much of it lies in the contrasting backgrounds of the two men. Ovett was from working class stock, a young boy who discovered his talent for running and pushed it to its limit. He was a natural who destroyed the local competition. Whilst he was flawed academically (as with the author of this review, Ovett is a dyslexic) it was nonetheless clear that from an early age that he was destined to compete at the very highest level.
Coe's talent was less obvious. Privately educated and privileged, he was nevertheless pushed, some would say bullied, by his father Peter into becoming a middle distance runner. At 5'9" with a thin, wiry frame, Coe rarely measured up to the boys he was competing against. Yet, that unlikely frame hid a rare and fierce competitive spirit.
This is where Butcher's story is at its best, as he takes us into the minds of the protagonists of this unique sporting drama. Ovett largely comes across as relaxed, affable and a total oddball.
Coe by contrast is straight, measured and in every respect an establishment figure. His every sentence seems testament to the many letters that now follow his name.
Yet, it is Ovett who seems the more likable. He grants rare extensive interview time to Butcher, who rewards him with the portrayal of a man who was largely misunderstood at the height of his powers. However, it should be noted that Butcher is perhaps too quick to excuse lapses in his memory as a consequence of his dyslexia. It seems to me at least that Ovett has a selective memory and an almost inexplicable habit of forgetting defeats.
Coe seems polite, disciplined and somewhat distant by contrast. However, The Perfect Distance makes it exceptionally clear that the complex relationship with Peter, his father and coach, is a direct cause of that restrained public facade. The private Coe is portrayed in the book as racked with insecurity at the large shadow that Ovett cast over him.
After those battles in 1980 which came to define their careers, both Coe and Ovett casually swapped world records in the following years as they, with the help of Steve Cram, made Britain the dominant force in men's middle distance.
At this point in the story, Pat Butcher takes us on an entertaining, if unexpected diversion into the wider history and context of middle distance running. Whilst this is a mildly enlightening interlude, it also shows that he is stretching his material somewhat. Even with the addition of a chapter on Cram, the quality of Butcher's analysis fades somewhat as the section on the 1984 Olympic Games begins.
From that games comes the photograph used at the top of this review - Ovett, Cram and Coe at the front of the 1500 metres final. It was to be Ovett's final curtain at the Olympics. Coe had the last laugh as he stormed to victory. Yet, days earlier, in the 800 metres final, Coe had put a consoling arm around Ovett at the finish line having been beaten to gold himself and said to his great rival:
'We're too old to be playing with fire.'
The picture that accompanies this quote, of the two arm in arm, dismisses the widely held misconception that Coe and Ovett dislike each other. As Butcher repeatedly observes in this book, they may not have been close friends, but they held a constant bond of respect for each others ability.
Having interviewed widely and thoroughly for this book amongst many of the world's top athletes of this period, Butcher has certainly captured the wider context of these halcyon days for the sport.
Despite the wonderful summer that British athletics has just had, it is difficult to imagine a another Coe or Ovett emerging any time soon at middle distance. As Pat Butcher makes quite clear in his conclusion to The Perfect Distance, we would be very fortunate to see their like again.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.
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