I remember Seb (now Lord) Coe. His great rival was Steve Ovett, and although Coe beat Ovett to win the 1500 metres at the 1980 Olympics, that was only after Ovett had defied the bookies and beaten Coe for the gold medal in the 800 metres. At the medals presentation for the 800 metres, Ovett reached down and offered his hand to Coe. The future Lord took it, TV critic Clive James wrote at the time, “as though Ovett had offered him, not a hand, but a turd”.
Fast forward three and a half decades and it looks as though the good Lord Coe is in the shit again. The world of international athletics is in a tailspin over allegations of athlete doping on an industrial scale. The plan at present seems to be to pin the bulk of the blame onto Russian athletes and officials, since we all hate Russia and Putin these days. But that’s not likely to settle the matter. Coe was appointed the president of the International Association of Athletic Federations last August, having served as vice-president since 2007.
Coe is on TV these days denouncing the corruption and doping that’s going on throughout the athletics world, and expressing his determination to clean it all up. But as I think Jon Snow said to him in a recent interview, either he was asleep at the wheel as vice-president for eight years or he was corrupt – take your pick. Since Seb has always been packaged as the Tim Henman of athletics (except that Coe won things), it’s going to be interesting to see if he can do a Houdini with this one.
Steve Ovett now lives in Melbourne. How wise.
His Lordship still found time in his busy schedule to vote in the Lords to remove tax credits from the needy.
Maybe he believes the poor are spending their money on performance enhancing drugs.
Still I always say if you want something done ask a busy person.
“There is no shame in not knowing, the shame lies in not finding out.” Russian proverb
Seb Coe could concentrate on corruption, the use of narcotics and prostitution closer to home.
Twenty “silent peers” have been paid more than £1.6 million in allowances and travel expenses over the past five years despite them making almost no contribution to debates in the House of Lords.
The peers, who include former ministers and an aide to the Queen, are entitled to claim a tax-free allowance of £300-a-day for attending the House of Lords as well as travel costs for those living outside London.
An analysis by The Telegraph found that one member has claimed more than £200,000 for attending the Lords while four have claimed over £100,000. They have barely spoken on the floor of the house. Then there are those who tell us that health and welfare services are in need of “urgent reform,” they usually turn up late and leave early, for a strawberry tea, a bargain at £21.50. Nice work if you can get it.
Ovett was always portrayed as man of the people, while Coe was the posh boy.
But I find it hard not to give him some benefit of the doubt, simply because the titanic tussles between the two of them evoke so many memories for me.
Honourable mention too for Steve Cram and Peter Elliot who were always in the mix.
Cram I remember, Elliot not…
Jude
Elliot was a tough wee yorkshireman (probably still is). He never quite had the natural talent of the other 3 but he had true grit as I remember and frequently found himself pushed into 2nd place.
Are you assuming they all ran clean?
Sherdy
Of course not. They are English, therefore they must have been cheating.
Stands to reason.
Yes indeed ,a rare breed that nests in the House of Lords ! Lord Janner, who was way too ill to be prosecuted for alleged paedophilia, has managed to drag himself from his sickbed 203 times in order to vote in that bastion of undemocratic governance.His feeble hand managed to sign the chits to enable himself to collect over £100,000 in expenses …..not really much evidence of dementia there ! When we take Lord Sewel’s drugs and prostitution dalliances and Baroness Wilcox’s £5700 per month for a 200 yard walk we realize the utter corruption in Westminster (in both houses).Unfortunately we pay for these incorrigible gangsters to fleece us daily and inflict cruelty and hardship on the most vulnerable in society.
Great.story jude.
Y.E.P.J.I.M.
I have never liked Coe, he always came across as a smarmy posh boy and my hunch was proven correct when he emerged as a Tory. Ugh. I hope he goes down with the whole rotten ship, all the recent (justified) criticism of Sepp Blatter and co.
I never liked Coe, he always came across as a smarmy posh boy and my instinct was proven sound when he emerged as a Tory MP and Lord. Ugh.
I
Oops….finger slipped on the keyboard…..
If only his parents had called him ‘Glen’, he would have had another mountain to climb but he would have been loved in Scotland. As a Tory friend of William Hague, he is viewed here with roughly the same disdain as that reserved usually for Thatcher.
SEBASTIAN
Remembrance being in the air, Esteemed Blogmeister, your retelling of the celebrated Coe-Ovett turdshake was the most heartwarming of 800 yard gallops down memory lane.
It reminds one of Sebastian’s comment in The Tempest: ‘he received comfort like cold porridge’. As well it might. For Seb Coe (sounds like an illegal substance, does it not?) was indeed named for/after that character in the play by The Great Shakes.
(That play would be retitled ‘Perfect Storm’ in the DruidShakespeare canon. Strikingly enough, there is an episode of drug skullduggery in the same play: ‘what a drowsiness possesses them’ !).
Indeed, if one’s memory lane extends beyond that which is already beginning to dwindle to a 100 yard crawl, Lord Coe’s sister was also called after a character in a different play: Hermione or Miranda or a name of that ilk.
To further the Shakespearean link the boy Coe was schooled in Stratford on Avon and even went on to record his first victory at international level in (gulp) San Sebastian. Odd, but true as God, true.
He even ended up his political life as the chief of staff of another look- if not name- alike character from a Shakespeare play: William Hague / Puck.
What is it about the Tories and dodgy athletes at all at all? Think also: Jeffrey Archer, the Tory athlete who could not only write a story but was also able to begin and end a, erm, sentence.
As The Tempest was (gasp) Shakespeare’s last play the good Lord Coe must be hoping there is not a precedent there of sorts.
We have all, alas, travelled many a marathon since the dear dead days not quite beyond beyond recall when the wing-heeled and crew-cutted Herb Elliot from Perth, Western Australia in 1958 hopped on a double decker bus in O’Connell St. and took it out to Santry Stadium.
Where he proceeded to atomise the then mile world record on a cinder track.
And if that wasn’t enough, John Thomas, the legendary black high jumper from Boston, Mass, gave a memorable exhibition of just how to (gulp) straddle the bar. Real cornucopia stuff.
Mind you, since the current scandal broke it is a different athlete and a distinct character from the literature of animation which has been on the lips of most folk down here in the Free Southern Stateen.
Or, if not on the lips of most folk then at least on those of Perkie’s inner Wile E. Coyote. And his nemesis: the Road Runner aka Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Kiernan.
-Beeb ! Beeb !
For yonks now RTE’s go-to guru on athletics has been Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ K of Kerry who won the Dublin marathon twice and finished ninth in the Los Angeles Olympics once. He is also a fanatical supporter of Shamrock Rovers aka The Shams and being a native of Listowel nourishes a bottomless loathing of bogball, aka, Gaelic Football.
So much so that whenever RTE require a critic to plant the spikes into the heels of the GAH the gold medalist go-to GAH-basher -guy is invariably Jeremiah the Willing. For ‘whenever’ read: often, very.
The Road Runner of RTE’s mantra being: ‘yerra, the Sports Council’s ghrant to the GAH ought to be withdrawn and thransferred immediately to the noble sport of Athletics, the last bashtion of real sportsmen and women along with soccer, oops, football’.
Did one mention that the CEO of the Sports Council is one, John Tracey who finished second in the Los Angeles marathon ahead of Jeremiah J.?
-Beeb ! Beeb !
Many a time and oft Perkie’s Wile E. Coyote has come a cropper in pursuit of RTE’s Road Runner’s logic. Being lacking somewhat in gravitas it is little wonder that gravity is his great enemy. Thus he has found himself hovering in midair in mid-pursuit before suddenly plummeting down into the bottomless chasm of Logic Canyon.
-Beeb ! Beeb !
Alas, this is a chirpy sound which has (sob) suddenly disappeared from the soundtrack of the Free Southern Stateen.
In a phrase: RTE’s Road Runner has (gulp) run to ground.
Ah, The Croneyess of the Long-distance Shunner.