Olympic memories – 1980

I’m about to throw my blogging rule book out the window here, but I thought it would be good to have a bit of a build up to the start of the Olympic Games on Friday. By my reckoning, these will be the eighth summer Olympics of my lifetime and they begin on 08.08.08 – spooky or what? Also, our baby is due to be born on the same day; I’m not sure if there’s any significance in all of this, but maybe if it’s a boy we should call him Zeus.

For the next week, I am going to pick out a memory from each of the seven previous games to share with you, beginning with 1980. It has to be said that, being only three at the time, I was only vaguely aware of the Moscow Olympics, but Steve Ovett was one of my childhood sporting heroes (along with Steve Davis, Stevie Archibald… are you noticing a theme here?) so the chance to look back at his only Olympic victory is justified, I feel. One thing I do remember about Steve Ovett was his habit of waving to the crowd as he came round the final bend – something that I copied on my way to winning the Garnock Academy 2nd year 200m race in 1990.

Plenty has been written about the rivalry between Ovett and Sebastian Coe, particularly with regard to the 1980 Olympics, so you probably know the background. If not, you can read about it here. In summary: Ovett was favourite for the 1500m, Coe was favourite for the 800m, the 800m came first. I won’t spoil it for you.