Just How Low Can Coe Go?

A diminutive Briton runs a redoubtable mile

Halfway through his victory lap, a spectator handed Sebastian Coe a hazel branch with the Union Jack attached. Holding the flag high, the slender Englishman rounded the track at Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway, while more than 16,000 spectators rose to a standing ovation. But it was not until he reached the athletes' reception center, where his fellow competitors applauded him, that Coe understood what the rumpus was about. Said he: "That really made what I did sink in for the first time."

What he did was stun the track world with a new record for the mile, still the sport's glamour event. Coe, 22, a Sheffield engineer's son, who was relatively unknown and had run the mile only twice before, had not only whipped a field of a dozen top competitors but did it in a time of 3:49--.4 of a second faster than the mark set by New Zealand's John Walker in 1975. Moreover, just twelve days before, on the same track, Coe had taken the 800-meter race in 1:42.3, lopping more than a second off the 1977 record held by Cuba's Alberto Juantorena. Coe's redoubtable double made him an early favorite in both the 800 and 1500 meters at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Bislett Stadium, a runner's paradise that has produced more than 30 world records, attracted an outstanding field, including such world class milers as Steve Scott, the U.S.'s best, Eamonn Coghlan of Ireland and Walker. Slight of build (5 ft. 9 3/4 in., 129 Ibs.), Coe is a "tactical" runner who compensates for lack of brute horsepower with shrewd race strategy. His plan this time, he explained later, had been "to stay close to the lead, but never be the lead myself, until the end."

Approaching the final quarter, he was second, almost shoulder to shoulder with Scott and seven yards ahead of the field. At that point, he recounted, "I said to myself: 'Now or never!' " Then came a burst of speed that seemed to leave his rivals frozen. He swept to the lead to finish 15 yards ahead of Scott, whose time of 3:51.11 was only .01 of a second slower than Jim Ryun's 1967 American record. The next eight runners all came in under 3:56.

The ease of Coe's victory dumbfounded his rivals. "He didn't even go full blast," marveled Scott. A graduate this year (in economics) of Loughborough University of Technology, Coe was a late bloomer as a runner. Though a champion schoolboy racer, his world class potential did not appear until later. He ran a 3:57.7 mile in 1977, and he turned in the second fastest 800 meter in the world last year. Still, no one saw him as any threat to his celebrated countryman Steve Ovett, 23, who until last week was the top-rated miler around. Ovett had cockily predicted that any winner at Oslo would find victory "hollow," because he was not entered. Afterward, he graciously credited Coe with "a superb piece of work."

Struggling to explain Coe's surprise triumph, Fleet Street tabloids discovered that his sister Miranda is a notably leggy chorine working in Las Vegas, and concluded that good pins just run in the Coe family. But Coe's father and coach, Peter, credits his son's ability to the rough, hilly countryside around the family's Sheffield home: "Since he could stand up, Sebastian has been running around in this landscape. That is where he gained the basic strength he now enjoys."

Coe's record came hard after the 25th anniversary of Roger Bannister's landmark sub-4-min. mile. The event had been losing some of its luster lately, mainly because most major championships are run at its rough metric equivalent (1,500 meters) and because Walker's 1975 record seemed unassailable. But then, this winter, Coghlan broke the indoor mile record with a clocking of 3:52.6, and many excellent times followed outdoors. Now there is talk that the mark could drop to 3:45. Walker, for one, reckons that Coe is the man to do it. Said he last week: "Everybody says they want to take their record back, but I may have to resign against this Brit."

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