You sense that writing Seb Coe: The Autobiography (Hodder, £20) must have been a pleasurable task for the Lord of the Five Rings: it’s about his favourite subject. ‘I am known for many things,’ he says. And ‘I’ve always been able to read people pretty well.’ ‘Good athletes tend not to be good ball players, but I may be the exception that proves the rule.’ A crowd gets ‘classic Coe being Coe’. He even praises his own handwriting. Other people receive plaudits, but only for bringing out the best in Seb.
Chief among these is the second-most important person in Coe’s life, his late father Peter, the athlete’s trainer for much of his career. Not that the relationship was saccharine. After the Moscow Olympics 800m final, his father told Seb: ‘You ran like an absolute cunt.’
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