at that stage both he and his father/coach Peter thought he was destined to be a 5000m runner. Then in mid 1976, Coe had a major breakthrough at a minor athletics outpost, taking three seconds off his 800m best to run 1:47.7 in a British Milers’ Club race

Dai Greene is sitting outside the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on a still September evening. Just a few minutes ago he was centre stage on the track. He finished second, but in doing so became overall winner of the 2011 Diamond League Series

was not ‘Would he win?’, but ‘How fast could he go?’But, in Korea last summer, something strange happened. In the 100m World Championship final in Daegu, Bolt didn’t win. In the biggest race outside of the Olympics, he false-started for the first time in his