ONE OF the greatest sporting rivalries of modern times, the one-upmanship battle between Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, is to be brought to life on film, it was announced yesterday.
The pair enjoyed a domination of middle distance running three decades ago as they set world records and collected Olympic medals.
Now the BBC is developing a movie version of their fight for supremacy.
Coe – now Lord Coe – is the London 2012 chair and the film is expected to be released before the next summer Olympics are staged.
British movie-makers struck gold when they tackled an earlier era of athletic prowess with Chariots Of Fire, which won four Oscars in 1981.
The film, about British runners at the 1924 Olympics, won best film and best adapted screenplay for Colin Welland’s script among its haul.
The BBC is working with AL Films, whose producers were behind the BBC1 hit Small Island, to develop the movie.
Coe and Ovett first met on the track in their senior careers at the European Championships in 1978, a race that would set the scene for the battles to come.
Ovett finished second to East German Olaf Beyer, with Coe third.
The pair, who had very different backgrounds, jostled for titles at championships and famously went head-to-head at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
Ovett beat Coe to win gold in the latter’s favoured 800 metres. Coe then turned the tables in Ovett’s preferred 1,500 metres later in the same Games – Coe was to retain his 1,500 metres title four years later in Los Angeles.
They snatched records from each other, and in one 10-day period in 1981 the world record for the mile bounced between them three times.
Coe at one point held the 800 metres, 1,500 metres and mile world records at the same time, while Ovett subsequently became both the 1,500 metres and mile world record holder.
Ovett, who struggled with injury, amassed one Olympic gold to Coe’s tally of two, one of which came from the LA Olympics of 1984.
Los Angeles-based British writer William Davies, who worked on hits such as Johnny English, Twins and Flushed Away, will write the screenplay.
It is to be based on the classic account of their rivalry, Pat Butcher’s The Perfect Distance.
Producer Vicky Licorish said: “You were either an Ovett person or a Coe person and that’s what makes it such a great character piece as well.”
Her co-producer, Joanna Anderson, said: “Will is a fantastic writer who is a keen sportsman. He has been fired up by this story which means so much to a UK audience and is the British Olympic story which also gripped the US.”
Christine Langan, creative director of BBC Films, said: “This is a gem of a story, about British sporting life and more. Will’s take on it is very exhilarating.”
