The World Athletics President’s 800m from Florence on 10 June 1981 stood as a British record for 45 years.
When it comes to breaking 800m records, much of the talk in 2026 revolves around the women’s world record of 1:53.28 held by Yarmila Kratochvilova. However, Seb Coe’s 800m best of 1:41.73 has stood as a British record since 1981 and has been beaten by everyone from Steve Cram and Peter Elliott to Ben Pattison and Max Burgh over the past 45 years.
Coe remembers what he describes as “a night of mild comedy.” The meeting at Firenze’s Stadio Comunale was intended to be little more than an early-season benchmark exercise, and when the schedule began to run unimaginably late, the then 24-year-old was left with a race build-up that was somewhat less than ideal.
“I skipped the warm-up and just lay on the grass, waiting with the other athletes,” he recalls.
During that wait, Carl Lewis won the 100m and the crowd went wild when the time of 9.92, which would have been a world record, appeared on the stadium scoreboard. As it turned out, however, the American clock was 10:13 and the electronic display was working less.
With that controversy still hanging in the air, the 800m starting gun was not fired until after 11pm. Kou had asked for help from the side.
“Having a race experience of that nature, trying to find half-time in a decipherable language has never been easy,” he says. “Mave Kyle was my team manager that night and I wanted to go hard, so I handed her my Casio training watch and said,
“I actually heard him yell 49 something as I was walking past, so I thought, ‘Hey!’
“I thought. “Well, it’s pretty hard to get it that accurate,” so I went on my lap (honorably) thinking it was probably around 1:42, but (that) it may or may not be close to the world record.
“I kept the watch on it until the battery died.”
It took some time to confirm that Kou had actually beaten his then world record of 1:42.33 by 0.6 seconds. Given Lewis’ earlier debacle, however, the crowd took a bit of convincing.
“When I came across the line in 1:41, you could see them all going. “Yes, that’s right. OK. “There was a bit of disbelief and then of course it passed.
“Billy Conchella, who went on to win the world title, was my pacemaker that night. He took me (first lap) in the 49 and bits and then I just remember doing one lap by myself. It was a beautiful evening. It was late but it was absolutely stunning.
However, there would be no hero’s welcome for Coe upon his return home. “The next day I had a really early flight home and went back to Loughborough to have breakfast at the halls I was staying at,” he adds. “It was early, I entered, and of course no one even understood what I did, some guys came up to me and said: “Where were you last night?”
“One of my training partners even said: “Yeah, he always jumps in when it really counts.” There was a social I missed and I had to explain to them that I had actually broken the world record the night before.
“They thought it was pretty funny, but they still didn’t forgive me for missing the social.”
Coe laughs at the memory, a smile that lingers as he looks back on his 1981 achievements, which also included a world record 1000m run in Oslo a month after the Fireworks in Florence.
“It was my best season,” Coe said. “1:41 was good, but if you ask me what I think, athletically, was my best performance ever, it was 2:12.18 in the 1000m in Oslo.
“It’s a purple patch in a career and you’re lucky if you get one. You just take it when it comes and it’s extraordinary because you just go to the line and you just know you’re going to win. It sounds really arrogant, but there’s no other way to say it.
“It’s not an exact science, but there’s just this point where, for whatever reason, everything comes together.”
Putting Coe’s run into context
At the time, Coe’s run shocked the sporting world as it was set so early in the season (it was his third two-lap outing and first run outside Great Britain that summer) and came at a low-profile meeting where he won by almost six seconds. However, even at a time when athletics was one of the most popular sports in Great Britain, with Coe and Ovett regularly appearing on the back and front pages of the dailies, this performance by Coe was rightly considered ‘Beamonesque’ in both its quality and impact.
Coe’s first international outing in 1981 was at Crystal Palace on 3 June, a week before the run in Florence. In the quadrilateral between England, USA, Belgium and Ethiopia, Coe looked superb as he stormed to victory in the 800m at the front in 1:44.06 (12.3 last 100m), tossing compatriot Garry Cooke 15m in the home straight without effort. Less than two hours later, he ran the final leg of the 4x400m relay in which he won (from Steve Scutt) ahead of US 400m hurdler Burton Williams, but turned a 1m lead into a 4m deficit, confusing the position as he began the practice run from the start.
It seemed a tall order to pull the specialist back by a lap, but Coe dug in and slowly spun into his rival, leveling the top of the field down the straight and then easing past when the American, perhaps due to pass the specialist with two laps to go, succumbed to the pressure and dropped the baton. Coe came out and finished with a 45.65 split. He’s never been faster, and the signs look good for a fast time later in the season, perhaps July or August, when athletes strive to peak. Indeed, both Kou and his father/coach, Peter, had already penciled in their attempt on July 11 in Oslo. Meanwhile, they looked to the “sharp” and an expected time of “around 1:43” on a warm evening in Florence, a week after his Crystal Palace run.
It has often been claimed that Coe’s run in Florence was a planned world record attempt. However, his father, who usually accompanied his athlete to foreign matches and, of course, world record attempts, did not accompany him to Florence. Indeed, Coe himself told David Miller so in his first biography, Running Free.
David Miller wrote: “Before Seb flew to Italy, he called me and discussed his prospects, having already spoken to Peter. I wanted to know if there was even the slightest possibility of a RECORD EXPERIMENT “working”. there must have been something unique even in his exploits.’
Coe himself added: “I would tone down my training a little bit, doing heavy endurance work, even though I had a personal best in the 200m under 22.0. I knew from the 1:44.06 the week before that I was in good shape, but that was about it.”
When the day came and Coe landed in Pisa, it seemed that the omens were not really good, and that even a fast time might not be noticed after all.
“I got to Pisa and took a sticky bus to Florence with temperatures in the 90s. I don’t know if it was a prelude to being sick the following week, but I had a really bad headache before the race. It was so hot that on race day all I could do was drink bottled water and try to sleep. Peter and I thought we warmed up well. 1:43/1:44 and we were looking for a ‘safe’ run in warm climates.”
Coe’s record is 1:41.73
Kou was on the third row, with Zivotic, Grippo and Concella outside of him. After some delays the gun went to 800m and at the line break 19-year-old Conchella, then a 400m runner (PB: 45.38, 1979), running up the distance, hit the front with Seb a step behind. The Kenyan covered the 200m in a reported 24.4, Coe second in 24.6, and the 400m in (then reported) 49.7 (Coe – 49.9).
It was only now that thoughts of the record entered Coe’s mind. As he entered the turn at the start of the second lap, he came out behind the young Concella, who was clearly not the designated pacesetter as he showed no sign of slowing down, pulling out or his better-known English rival. This was crucial as Coe was now running wide, almost in the second lane, 60m from that bend, which would have resulted in an unnecessary run of one and a half metres, or about two tenths of a second.
As Coe rounded the third bend he was now clear and smoothly pulling away from Conchella and the field, opening up a 30m gap immediately and looking like a 400m runner. The sight of Seb Coe on the fly that night, perfectly balanced, with elegant yet powerful strides that seem to maintain an almost metronomic speed, is surely one of the great sights of international athletics.
He hit the 600m mark in 1:15.0. “in the final bend I had to mentally yell at myself to keep the pace.”
As he entered the final straight, despite the noticeable marks on the whitewashed track he was running on, the effort was clearly written on his face, his jaw line tensing as he sprinted across the finish line and (in David Coleman’s words) “scratching to miss the photographers”.
Almost as soon as Koi’s race ended, Carl Lewis’ earlier revised 100m world record time of 10.13 appeared on the stadium scoreboard, understandably disappointing those who thought they had witnessed a new world record. Bullying ensued, which understandably confused Coe at first. When the situation was explained to him, he had to wait an agonizing 10 minutes before his official time was confirmed for the camera finish equipment as 1:41.72 (only later certified by the IAAF as 1:41.73).
That historic run in Florence 45 years ago was somehow an exorcism of the ghost that had lingered with Coy after the disastrous Moscow 800m the previous summer. It was also the first of several world records that season for the Englishman, who would go on to break the 1000m and mile records (twice), win the European and World Cups over 800m and remain unbeaten at any distance over 200m throughout the season.
» The above feature was adapted from material published in AW in 2021 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Coe’s record.
