Sebastian Coe

Sebastian Coe0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:27

Our castaway this week is an athlete.

Presenter0:30

World record holder, Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe.

Presenter0:34

Sir, what would you be happiest to have got away from?

Sebastian Coe0:38

Certainly last year it would have been the Olympic Games build up.

Presenter0:41

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe0:41

Yes. Which starts relentlessly from November the previous year and just reaches a crescendo in August.

Presenter0:48

There's nothing particular this year that you want to get away from.

Sebastian Coe0:51

No, athletically it's probably going to be a fairly enjoyable year, so there not too many pressures.

Presenter0:57

Right.

Sebastian Coe0:58

Yeah.

Presenter0:58

You played discs about?

Sebastian Coe1:00

Yes.

Sebastian Coe1:01

Do you play an instrument? I don't play an instrument, but I I think it's probably fair to say that I have a very heavy reliance on music. Do you sing? For yourself? Well, for myself, yes, but

Presenter1:08

Feel so

Presenter1:10

Do you find that when you're training, uh a tune runs through your head in in time with your steps?

Sebastian Coe1:16

Often it does, and it can be very annoying because uh you may be out for a twelve or thirteen mile run. Yes, you've got the same inane tune going on in your head for that length of time can be

Presenter1:22

Yeah, so you've got the same term going on.

Presenter1:27

What would you want music to do for you on a desert island? Cheer you up? Remind you of the past?

Presenter1:33

Provide music while you work.

Sebastian Coe1:36

Well

Sebastian Coe1:37

I suppose on occasions in normal life it's done all of those, so I'd be looking for probably the same things on a desert island.

Presenter1:44

What's the first one you've got there on that small pile?

Sebastian Coe1:47

Well, the first one is a is a Dave Brubeck number called The History of a Boy Scout, and it was the very first piece of jazz that I ever heard, and apparently, or so my family told me, that I was tapping my foot to this at the age of three.

Speaker 22:13

Da da da da da da da da da.

Presenter2:57

History of a Boy Scout by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Presenter3:01

Boy Scout training very useful on a desert island

Presenter3:04

Seb, it says in the reference books that you were born in Chiswick, West London. You didn't stay there very long.

Sebastian Coe3:09

We moved. Gradually moved our way north via the Midlands. I used to live in Stratford on Avon and uh fourteen years ago now we moved as a family up to Yorkshire.

Presenter3:19

Do you have brothers and sisters?

Sebastian Coe3:20

I have a brother and two sisters, yes.

Presenter3:22

Now, um, your mother was an actress.

Sebastian Coe3:24

That's right, yes.

Presenter3:25

Whereabouts? What sort of things did she have to do?

Sebastian Coe3:27

Well, she was rather trained and went into quite a few of the reputed companies.

Presenter3:31

And your grandmother was a dancer, and your sister is a dancer.

Sebastian Coe3:36

Was your father an athlete? My father was a very keen racing cyclist.

Sebastian Coe3:41

and competed at at club level and got quite involved in the sport.

Sebastian Coe3:46

but not in athletics itself.

Presenter3:48

But there's a background of physical exertion in the family.

Sebastian Coe3:51

Yes, and funnily enough, in terms of events and sporting events, there are a lot of similarities between uh road racing on cycles and uh and athletics.

Presenter4:01

How old were you when you began to show that you could run rather fast?

Sebastian Coe4:06

I suppose it's uh

Sebastian Coe4:09

racing in school sports days and things like that and nothing

Presenter4:12

You are eight.

Sebastian Coe4:14

Yes, that kind of thing. I suppose it's just being a little bit faster than other people at your age group.

Presenter4:19

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe4:19

Yeah.

Presenter4:19

Oh, you moved up to Yorkshire. Did your school there have a good athletic

Sebastian Coe4:22

Athletic record? Not particularly. I went to went to a big school in Sheffield and uh like most of the big schools sort of fairly varied sporting interests, but uh one of the guys up there, uh a teacher up there called John O'Keefe, who was very interested in athletics and together my father sort of channelled me towards the local athletic club. The Hallam Shaharias. That's right. You were twelve, I believe. I was, yes. The the interesting thing about John O'Keefe is that uh

Sebastian Coe4:51

I joined the school at the age of eleven and it was with John that I stayed during the Olympic build up ten or twelve years later in Rome.

Presenter4:58

Ten to

Presenter5:00

And up in in Sheffield that meant running over the peaks.

Sebastian Coe5:04

Very harsh sometimes during winter particularly.

Presenter5:05

Sometime during the winter.

Presenter5:07

Learning the hard way.

Sebastian Coe5:08

Yes. Very invigorating though.

Presenter5:11

Some gorgeous scenery. I'm not so sure with snow on it.

Sebastian Coe5:14

Well you it's you can be four miles from the house and uh almost in a wilderness.

Presenter5:20

What's your second record?

Sebastian Coe5:22

Well, I've chosen a a piece of comedy, actually, Tony Hancock, and A Sunday Afternoon at Home, for a number of reasons the main one, I think, being recollections of many Sunday afternoons spent as a student in university.

Sebastian Coe5:38

communal living, trying to think of things to do.

Sebastian Coe5:42

Hello! Hello! What's the matter? Over the roads going out. Shh! Say nothing! Say nothing!

Presenter5:47

Uh

Sebastian Coe5:47

Quiet, quiet.

Presenter5:48

Look behind the curtain, didn't let him To you

Sebastian Coe5:49

Yeah.

Presenter5:49

Uh

Presenter5:51

That's the first time they've been out together for ages.

Presenter5:53

Wonder where they're going?

Speaker 25:54

She found out about him and that girl, you know.

Speaker 25:57

Mm.

Speaker 25:58

He said he had to work late and she saw them that night in the pictures shoking wow. Was there? Oh yes. She was with the milk.

Presenter6:07

Our milkman? The one with the big nose? Yes! He gets around, doesn't he?

Presenter6:12

Tony Hancock and the rest of his gang.

Presenter6:14

A Sunday afternoon at home.

Presenter6:17

Now, right from the beginning, was it the long distances that attracted you? You were never a sprinter.

Sebastian Coe6:22

Oh, I was. I started out particularly started out as a sprinter. Did you? And a long jumper. Mhm. The two often go hand in hand. But after joining the local club in Sheffield, the Hallamshire Harriers, and particularly being in a very cross country orientated area, which is Yorkshire, they thought that I was a bit too small and slight to be a top class sprinter, so they channelled me towards uh the longer distance stuff.

Presenter6:48

Yes, you won the Yorkshire Schools Cross Country when you were fourteen.

Sebastian Coe6:51

That's right, yes.

Presenter6:52

And at seventeen you won the Yorkshire Schools' Championship and the English Schools' Championship.

Presenter6:58

Both at three thousand meters.

Sebastian Coe7:00

That's right. Um

Sebastian Coe7:02

It was at that point that I realized that to continue on going through the higher and higher distance would probably mean that by the a time I was mid twenties I'd be running the marathon. So we stopped at that point and decided to start coming back and concentrating more on the the shorter distance stuff.

Presenter7:19

Now your father, Peter Koe, had begun to coach you. Now who coached him? Because he didn't know an awful lot about running, did he?

Presenter7:26

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe7:26

Uh

Presenter7:26

Absolutely.

Sebastian Coe7:26

Nobody He started the day I started in athletics, and uh we both have an understanding that we'll quit both quit on the same day as well. But he went to many conferences when he was learning, did a lot of reading.

Sebastian Coe7:40

and and discarded a lot of stuff they didn't feel was relevant. And I think in a way it's probably made him a better coach.

Sebastian Coe7:48

by not having come into the sport with any preconceived ideas, and just sort of treating it from first principles, although having a fair grounding in another sport.

Presenter7:57

At seventeen, he said that in seven years you'd beat the fifteen hundred meters record by five seconds.

Presenter8:05

He knew that you were prepared to work at it at that level for the next seven years for a start.

Sebastian Coe8:10

I think so, yes. I mean he's never had to push me into athletics or into training. And everything that we've done together has been done almost with a mutual consent. But uh yes, he was very certain, very certain indeed.

Presenter8:20

But

Presenter8:24

And it was the 1500 meters that from that time you you set your sights on.

Sebastian Coe8:28

It was originally, yes, things often happen in accidents, but it was only entering an eight hundred meters in terms of a build-up for a fifteen hundred metre race a few years ago that uh I ran a I suppose for me quite a startling time. We decided to concentrate a little bit more on that until eventually the eight hundred meters became my premier event really.

Speaker 28:45

Yeah.

Presenter8:50

And you became junior champion?

Presenter8:53

And you moved on to Loughborough.

Sebastian Coe8:54

That's right.

Presenter8:55

To read one.

Sebastian Coe8:56

Economics and History. Sports facilities good there? Tremendous, yes. I've often said that uh if you can't succeed at Loughborough athletically you won't succeed anywhere. They've got everything.

Sebastian Coe9:07

in comparison with uh continental universities they are lacking a bit, but that's the that's the general state of things over here. And of course it was at that point that I joined up really in in terms of coaching with Peter, my father, with a a guy called George Gandhi, who's been such a tremendous help since that time.

Presenter9:25

Let's have your third record. What's that be?

Sebastian Coe9:27

Well, having spent three or four months of the winter of nineteen eighty in Rome,

Sebastian Coe9:33

For the Olympic build up, I decided to choose a piece from Tosca.

Presenter9:37

You're particularly fond of opera?

Sebastian Coe9:39

I love opera, yes, and this was uh

Sebastian Coe9:42

an opera based on Rome, so I really couldn't resist it.

Speaker 19:49

Soft feelings.

Speaker 29:54

Uh

Speaker 19:55

He's a hidden

Speaker 110:00

Uh

Speaker 110:01

Oh, Russia.

Speaker 110:20

And the worst part of the bar.

Speaker 110:27

Hallelujah.

Presenter10:35

An excerpt from the first act of Puccini's Tosca, Cattiaricarelli, and Jose Carreras.

Presenter10:42

What was the first time you ran for Britain?

Sebastian Coe10:46

My debut was an indoor international in West Germany and that was uh the

Sebastian Coe10:50

January or February of nineteen seventy seven.

Presenter10:53

What do you feel about indoor running?

Sebastian Coe10:55

I enjoy indoor running. It doesn't suit a lot of people, but uh I've always run very well indoors and like the atmosphere as well. I think it's probably the the closeness of the crowd.

Presenter11:04

Is the surface the same wherever you run indoors?

Sebastian Coe11:07

No, they vary considerably. Uh American tracks are often no more than about a hundred and sixty meters all the way around and can be very, very hard board, just wooden blocks, which can be extremely difficult to negotiate.

Presenter11:20

They heard, do they?

Sebastian Coe11:21

They do, yes. The European tracks are much nicer than normally banked two hundred metre tracks with fairly similar surfaces from outside.

Presenter11:29

Now the athletic season mercifully isn't all the year round. You you you do get a a winter break.

Sebastian Coe11:35

Well, I w I train all year round, with the exception of a few weeks' holiday at the end of the season. But yes, I don't compete the full year round. I don't think I could manage that.

Presenter11:43

Uh

Presenter11:45

And of course you were working for your degree, but well, every week from March to December there was a contest somewhere.

Sebastian Coe11:53

Yes, and it'd be very easy to be racing virtually two or three times a week at the moment.

Presenter11:58

Now how much training, how much daily training, do you have to do in miles or hours or both?

Sebastian Coe12:04

Well, that can vary. Uh often

Sebastian Coe12:07

The hours in a way are more formidable than the total mileage in a week. During the winter months I have to spend a lot of my time because I'm always looking towards track running and being able to run fast. I have to spend a lot of my week during the winter in the gymnasium. So that can often be six or seven hours a week just solidly in there before I've actually started any of the running. And during the winter my mileage by comparison with the real long distance guys is not all that great, but for me it's normally about seventy five, eighty miles a week. Yes. With a fair mix of uh of distance and speed work in there.

Presenter12:39

Yes.

Presenter12:43

Well, all that with your academic work doesn't give you much time to yourself, does it?

Sebastian Coe12:48

You really have to struggle sometimes to find any any time.

Presenter12:51

Well, you celebrated the completion of your exams by establishing three world records within a very short space of time. Was that planned, or did that just happen?

Sebastian Coe13:01

No, it it wasn't planned.

Sebastian Coe13:03

Almost the opposite really. I'd been working for my finals in in nineteen seventy nine, and the the build up for that sort of started with revision from February, March onwards. The exam was finished at the end of May, beginning of June.

Sebastian Coe13:18

And I think it was probably a mixture of total relief from having come through them, that uh I think that relief was released on the track, and I think that was as much to do with it as anything really.

Presenter13:29

Run down what those three world records were and where you got them.

Sebastian Coe13:34

Well, it it started on uh july the fifth in Oslo, which was the eight hundred meters. And twelve days later I went back and ran the Golden Mile and uh broke the mile record in that. And then forty one days later after the July the fifth I was in Zurich and I broke the fifteen hundred metre world record there.

Presenter13:54

Well, that was a very productive 41 days.

Sebastian Coe13:57

Well the master

Presenter13:57

Problem is product.

Sebastian Coe13:58

Active forty-one day

Presenter13:58

To forty-one days.

Sebastian Coe13:58

of my life.

Presenter13:59

Okay, good.

Presenter14:01

And the following year last year, 1980, of course, was to be the Olympics. Now, in the meantime, you were staying on at Loughborough?

Sebastian Coe14:08

Yeah.

Presenter14:08

Uh

Sebastian Coe14:08

Uh

Presenter14:09

To do some postgraduate work.

Sebastian Coe14:11

Yes, I came to the decision, really, the conclusion that after 1979 the pressures were such that to stay around and try and mix university life and and and athletics and all the other pressures uh something would have to give and I rather fancied it would be my performances in the Olympic Games if I wasn't very careful. So I really left Loughborough for a year and based myself in Sheffield with my family until the Christmas of 7980. And then I left for Italy for four months.

Presenter14:44

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe14:44

and missed the worst of the winter and I think the worst of all the excesses and the pressures in the build up.

Presenter14:50

Oh, you've got that nicely planned.

Sebastian Coe14:51

Yes, it worked very well.

Presenter14:54

Record number four we've got to.

Sebastian Coe14:56

Well

Sebastian Coe14:57

I make no apologies for my over-reliance on jazz.

Sebastian Coe15:00

And I've I've chosen one of the the greatest jazz vocalists, I think.

Sebastian Coe15:05

Billy Holiday

Sebastian Coe15:07

Georgia on my mind.

Speaker 115:09

Yeah.

Presenter15:10

Georgia

Presenter15:16

My song of you

Speaker 215:19

Uh

Speaker 215:20

I'm just sweet and clear as

Speaker 115:27

BAAAAAAA

Presenter15:33

Father

Presenter15:35

To me.

Sebastian Coe15:38

Otherwise,

Sebastian Coe15:44

Still in peaceful dreams I see The road leads back to it.

Presenter15:53

Georgia On My Mind, Billy Holiday recorded in 1941.

Presenter15:58

There's a character who comes into the story now.

Presenter16:01

An athlete named Steve Obert. Where did you two first meet?

Sebastian Coe16:06

Um, I'm trying to think. I think it goes back now to about

Sebastian Coe16:10

Nineteen seventy seven. Mhm. I don't think we'd met.

Sebastian Coe16:16

sort of person to person before that. And of course the the number of times we've ever met each other on the track is very limited. In fact I I'm wrong. We did actually race in the same English schools cross country championships and that is going back. That's about nineteen seventy three or seventy four. Mhm. When I think he finished second, I finished ninth.

Presenter16:34

But you became teammates, and you both run the same distances, the eight and the fifteen.

Sebastian Coe16:39

That's right, yes.

Presenter16:40

What did you feel about the nineteen eighty Olympics? I d I don't mean politically, that's your business. But did you feel somehow cheated because it wasn't a full-scale Olympics? There were were no Americans there, for example?

Sebastian Coe16:51

I felt saddened that many of the athletes and many of them um especially the Americans, good friends of mine, I felt very sorry for them that the ultimate I think the ultimate athletic ambition is to run in the Olympic Games, and I felt sorry for them that I felt they were cheated of of a place at the Olympics and all that it meant. And I think probably the Olympic Games

Sebastian Coe17:13

means far more to me now having been there than it did before I went.

Presenter17:18

Did you fly out together, you and Steve Everett?

Sebastian Coe17:20

No, we didn't fly out together. In fact, he arrived about two or three days after I did.

Sebastian Coe17:25

But uh they had a quite a good system that uh they didn't want the British team out there longer than was absolutely necessary, so they did staggered flights and flew us all in for our different needs at different times.

Presenter17:37

Was all the English team together in the Olympics for it?

Sebastian Coe17:40

Yes, we took up uh two full floors.

Sebastian Coe17:44

In two separate blocks. Were the arrangements good on the whole? The arrangements were much, much better than we'd dared fear, really.

Sebastian Coe17:52

The food was tremendous. They really had uh had gone to town.

Sebastian Coe17:56

Mi minor problems.

Sebastian Coe17:58

It always made me laugh that uh they bent over backwards to try and get the foods of the different countries and make us feel at home. And turning up for breakfast we had fried eggs for an English breakfast, but raw bacon.

Speaker 118:05

Uh

Presenter18:05

Filler

Presenter18:13

Oh, well, they were trying.

Sebastian Coe18:14

They were trying, yes.

Presenter18:15

Now in both the eight hundred and the fifteen hundred every one knew it was going to be a close thing between you and Ovet. You already had the world record for the eight hundred, and he had it for the mile. Had you run against each other very often?

Sebastian Coe18:29

Very few occasions.

Sebastian Coe18:31

The last time that we'd raced against each other was in the European Championships, I think, in nineteen seventy eight, and we both ran the eight hundred metres and were both beaten by an East German.

Presenter18:42

Now in Moscow the eight hundred came first.

Presenter18:45

You knew the form of all the other competitors.

Presenter18:48

Who was there apart from Ovid that you were scared of? Was it danger?

Sebastian Coe18:53

Well, there was nobody particularly, if I'm honest, I think, in the field that I was particularly worried about. I felt that I had the ability to certainly win the eight hundred metres.

Sebastian Coe19:03

I think my problems on the day were a mixture of Olympic nerves, Olympic pressures, and not having been in that situation before. It was nerves.

Presenter19:11

Was it the same? I mean, things went wrong. The conditions were good. You were in good shape.

Sebastian Coe19:11

Played before

Presenter19:16

There was a bit of barging about in the race, wasn't there?

Sebastian Coe19:18

Yes, but actually that didn't affect me too much, because uh I'd taken a fairly wide berth all the way round. I think, if I'm honest about it, I think I froze, I think, in the heat of the moment.

Presenter19:33

Is

Sebastian Coe19:33

And I think the pressure on the nerves got through just too much.

Presenter19:37

Right, so the 800 to overt.

Presenter19:39

But there was the 1500 to get your revenge. Let's have another record before we talk about that.

Sebastian Coe19:45

Well, I've chosen uh yet another jazz piece. This is uh a piece by the world's greatest jazz band, and quite an uplifting piece, really. Just a closer walk with Thee, but between the eight hundred and the fifteen hundred meters in Moscow. This comes back to the reliance on music.

Sebastian Coe20:02

I played this quite a few times.

Presenter20:53

The Lawson Haggart Grates of Jazz Just a Closer Walk with Thee, recorded in 1968.

Presenter21:00

So the fifteen hundred meters

Presenter21:04

I can't remember any athletic event at which there was so much interest in this country, and it wasn't anxiety as to whether Britain would get the gold medal. I mean, that was taken for granted, I think, but whether you would beat

Presenter21:16

Ovid or

Presenter21:17

He'd beat you.

Presenter21:19

How long after the eight hundred did you have the heats?

Sebastian Coe21:22

Well the final of the eight hundred metres was on the the Saturday evening.

Sebastian Coe21:26

So I had Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and then on the Wednesday we were back into the Olympic Arena again starting up with the 1500m heats.

Presenter21:35

Uh

Sebastian Coe21:35

Uh

Presenter21:35

Which distance do you prefer?

Sebastian Coe21:37

I prefer, I think, the eight hundred metres. Very difficult to say why, it's just a race that I think suits me.

Sebastian Coe21:45

And but I I I enjoy the two lap more than the three and a half.

Presenter21:49

Now this was the most important race you had ever run, and a few days before you had had that strange

Presenter21:55

Unfathomable freeze. How did you feel as you came to the

Presenter22:00

Run up. How did the heats go?

Sebastian Coe22:02

The heats went reasonably for me and I was I was just very pleased to be back into the Olympic Arena again, doing something, um racing. The final of the the eight hundred meters was on the Saturday night, so I had quite a few days to mentally try and get it together again because physically there was there was nothing really that was the that was the problem. It was just trying to forget what had happened on the Saturday, treating it as history and

Sebastian Coe22:26

buckling back down to it again.

Presenter22:28

Right, so the final. Did you draw a place that you liked?

Sebastian Coe22:34

I think if I remember I was drawn about four from the inside. But for fifteen hundred metres it's not quite as critical as it is for eight hundred meters. We don't run in lanes for the first hundred or so metres anyway.

Presenter22:44

Okay.

Presenter22:46

Tell me about the race, how it went.

Sebastian Coe22:49

Well, it started off very, very slowly until about seven hundred metres. It was a real snail's pace. And then suddenly Jürgen Straub, the East German, went straight to the front and really kicked in for what was, I think, one of the fastest last eight hundred metres in any major fifteen hundred metres race. It really was a blistering pace. And within seconds we were all running in single file. Nobody was worrying about tactics. They were just all desperately trying to hang on to Jürgen. It was a tremendously brave run from him.

Presenter23:19

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe23:22

Of course he was rewarded with a silver medal at the end as well.

Presenter23:24

And when did you pass him?

Sebastian Coe23:27

I think about a hundred and sixty metres from home.

Presenter23:30

And where was Steve Orvitt?

Sebastian Coe23:32

Well Steve followed me all the way.

Sebastian Coe23:34

He was stuck like glue to my shoulder.

Presenter23:36

But you didn't let him get past.

Sebastian Coe23:38

No, and coming into the finishing straight I managed to find just a little bit more, and uh Jurgen and Steve had a tremendous race up to the finish.

Presenter23:46

And there was your gold medal. Well done!

Sebastian Coe23:49

Thank you. Uh

Presenter23:50

Record number six.

Sebastian Coe23:52

Well, the Olympic anthem I've chosen simply because I don't think any of the British athletes had ever heard the Olympic anthem before, yet I think we could have all have hummed it at the end of the week or so in Moscow, because of course we didn't have the national anthem and the medal ceremony.

Presenter24:08

This was played every time there was a presentation.

Sebastian Coe24:11

This was played every time there was a British presentation, yes, instead of the national anthem.

Presenter24:35

The 1980 Olympic Anthem. Now you say 1981 this year isn't a particularly grueling year for you.

Sebastian Coe24:43

Well, it could be, I think, if I allowed it to be. Really the the year after an Olympic Games I think has to be slack because I don't think an athlete mentally or physically should push themselves into another hard season because the Olympic year is as mentally hard as physically hard.

Presenter24:58

Yes, of course. Well, already this year, despite the fact that you say that, you've broken the indoor world record for the eight hundred meters.

Sebastian Coe25:07

That's right. I mean that was against the East Germans earlier this year.

Presenter25:10

It's unusual to hold an indoor and an outdoor record for the same distance. Has that been done before?

Sebastian Coe25:13

And out.

Sebastian Coe25:16

I think it's the first time actually it has been achieved, yes.

Presenter25:20

Now, on the eleventh of July you broke your own record for the thousand metres in Oslo, and this is a slack year. If this is a slack year, what about next year?

Presenter25:29

Well

Sebastian Coe25:29

Yeah.

Presenter25:30

Yeah.

Sebastian Coe25:30

Next year we're back on the grind wheel again because we're back to the European Games which are in Athens and then closely followed by the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

Presenter25:38

and 83 the World Championships.

Sebastian Coe25:40

That's right, the very first time that we've had or we're going to have World Championships in athletics.

Presenter25:46

And eighty four, of course, the Olympics to look forward to again.

Presenter25:50

As far as you know, will you stay at the same distance as you have no plans to move on to five thousand or ten thousand?

Sebastian Coe25:55

Well, I guess I will probably be running the five thousand meters in the nineteen eighty four Olympics.

Presenter26:01

Now Daly Thompson was on the programme last year. He's a mate of yours, I know, and he talked of the big money that can be picked up by Olympic stars. He figures he's going to be a millionaire.

Presenter26:12

Have you any ideas on how you can capitalize on all the hard work, all the years you'll have put into running?

Sebastian Coe26:18

Well, it it's it's a very difficult thing really. And I think most athletes would agree with me that we didn't come into the sport originally to make money. We weren't able to look at other athletes and say, Oh, so and so is, you know, is living like a footballer or golfer or tennis player. Uh we really did come into the sport to enjoy it. And if the sport does go open and we're all all able to make um

Sebastian Coe26:42

legitimate livelihoods out of it, that would be fine, but at the moment it we still seem to be a fair way off that.

Presenter26:49

What are your plans in in in your private life? Now you'll have your master's degree in economics and history. Will you teach?

Sebastian Coe26:56

I don't think so. No, I probably go into industry but

Sebastian Coe27:00

It's all a bit vague at the moment really.

Presenter27:02

Yes, well you've got enough on your plate. We won't worry about it.

Sebastian Coe27:04

But certainly for the next few years.

Presenter27:05

Record number seven.

Sebastian Coe27:08

Back to Jazz Again, Sidney Beche, Love for Sale, a jazz standard, but I think Beche almost brings a classical presence to this recording.

Presenter28:13

Love for sale

Presenter28:15

Featuring Sidney Beshe.

Presenter28:17

Seb, how well could you look after yourself on a desert island? Are you good with your hands? A handy man.

Sebastian Coe28:23

I think I would

Sebastian Coe28:24

possibly just about manage, but I I'm not sure it would be that successful.

Presenter28:30

Any useful accomplishments like fishing.

Sebastian Coe28:33

I used to fish, but haven't done so now for about eight or nine years.

Presenter28:37

What sort of fishing did you do?

Sebastian Coe28:38

Just river fishing, uh occasional sea stuff, but nothing nothing very serious.

Presenter28:42

You could catch your supper.

Sebastian Coe28:44

I would like to think so.

Sebastian Coe28:46

Would you try to escape? If it was Olympic year, probably not.

Presenter28:53

Do you know anything about navigation?

Sebastian Coe28:55

Very little, very little.

Presenter28:56

All right. Leave it to the Olympic Committee. They'll come and find you.

Sebastian Coe29:00

Hopefully, yes.

Presenter29:01

Your last record.

Sebastian Coe29:02

A last record well

Sebastian Coe29:04

Again jazz. I've chosen this because for me it's really four records in one. It features Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, who need no introduction, Oscar Peterson on piano and Louis Armstrong singing and playing trumpet. So I don't think I could have got a better mix.

Speaker 129:30

How long I've been wondering, could this thing last rest? But the age of miracles hadn't passed. Oh, suddenly I saw you fair. And through foggy London town, the sun was shining.

Speaker 130:08

Climb out of the top of it as fast as possible.

Presenter30:17

Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Oscar Peterson A Foggy Day in London Town.

Presenter30:24

If you could take only one disc out of the H you play district would it be?

Sebastian Coe30:28

I think it would have to be that one.

Presenter30:30

And you're allowed one luxury to take with you to the island.

Sebastian Coe30:33

Well, I've thought long and hard about this, and I think the only thing I can come up with is a very, very comfortable bed.

Presenter30:41

Right, you'll have to build a waterproof hut, won't you?

Sebastian Coe30:43

Well, there's the motivation, yes.

Presenter30:45

Right.

Presenter30:46

And one book, The Bible and Shakespeare, are already there.

Sebastian Coe30:50

I've chosen the penguin Dorothy Parker.

Presenter30:52

Yes, that's a very good choice, I think. One could read that many times. And of course you've recently published a book of your own about your career to date, Running Free.

Sebastian Coe31:02

That's right, yes.

Presenter31:03

I hope there'll be a necessity for another volume quite soon.

Sebastian Coe31:06

Well, perhaps we can have running free on the island.

Presenter31:09

Huh?

Presenter31:10

And thank you, Sebastian Coe, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Sebastian Coe31:15

Thank you very much.

Presenter31:16

Goodbye, everyone.

Sebastian Coe31:24

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive.

Speaker 231:28

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four