Coe confirms form, Olympic intentions

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 38

Coe confirms form, Olympic intentions

NZPA London The top British athlete Sebastian Coe, already the favourite for at least one gold medal at Moscow, has emerged from winter training in Italy to confirm both his form and his Olympic intentions. Coe, the world recordholder for the 800 m, 1500 m and the mile, secluded himself in the tiny northern Italian town of Vigevano, near Milan, before Christmas to carry

out the early part of a rigorous training programme which he hopes will lead him to the top of the Olympic victory dais. Neither he, when he was in Britain briefly, nor his father-coach, Peter, would say where Britain’s hottest Olympic property for years was hiding. He reappeared last month for the annual Five Mills cross-country' in Italy, finished twenty-first and refused a personal opinion on the Moscow

games, and disappeared back to his training hideaway.

Coe broke surface on Monday to win a round-the-houses 7.2 km race in Vigevano in an easy style, not pressed by any of the club runners he had as his opposition.

He said that his solitary training had now ended and next week he plans to join the large British contingent searching for sun and early-season form at

Nice in the south of France.

Coe, unlike the British Equestrian Federation competitors who supported the British government’s call for a Moscow boycott, was emphatic for the first time that he would be at the Games. “There is no longer a problem because the British Olympic Committee has made the decision,” he Said. “1 am going to Moscow. It is not for me to pass judgment on the

Government. It is for mt» to continue my preparations for the Olympics.”

Coe said he had still not made a final decision on which events he would contest at ’ Moscow, although .all the signs point to his doubling over the 800 m and 1500 m. “I am training for the 800 and 1500 metres but it will be May or even June before I can really say,” Coe Said.