So you think you know your sports trivia? Well then can you answer this, who won the 600m race at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow? You don’t know? What do you mean it’s not a real event? Try telling that to David Warren.
Warren represented Great Britain in the 800m final in Moscow, having destroyed his competition in the trials “The promoter, Andy Norman, told me before the 800m [trial] race: ‘Britain have already selected Seb Coe and Steve Ovett – so why would they take someone else to make up the numbers? There’s no point just dipping under the line. You have to dominate these trials.” So Warren did, beating Paul Forbes and Steve Cram “by quite a margin”
Coe and Ovett were the clear favourites heading into the final, and some would say that Warren was unlucky to be competing at a time when a bronze medal was the best you could hope for, but he disagrees “To be part of the rock’n’roll era of athletics when you had the Coe and Ovett rivalry was brilliant. Whatever you do in life, it’s better to be part of excellence than mediocrity.”
The Olympic final, you’d expect, would be a nervous time for any competitor, but not so, Warren says, for Ovett “Everyone’s tense. We’ve been forced to wait together, 45 minutes before the race, in this dingy holding room. In walks Ovett, later than the rest of the athletes, and he breaks wind! He just trotted round this room farting, acting relaxed.”
The race itself was a surprisingly slow one, and so as they approached the halfway mark, Warren made an ambitious break “I decided at the first corner of the final lap, to make a break, ‘if it’s going to be a slow race’ I thought, ‘I might as well have a go’.”
Warren hit the front, and led at the 600m mark “As I’ve become older and fatter, I like to claim at dinner parties that I was Olympic champion over 600 metres.” In reality, Warren faded during the last 200 metres, and ended up finishing in last place, or as he prefers to call it, “Eighth.”
Warren is now 55, and thanks to a decision he made 30 years ago, works in the sports marketing industry, specialising in Formula One. Although many will remember the 1980 Olympic final for the battle between Coe and Ovett, a battle in which Ovett was ultimately the victor, It’s worth sparing a thought for David Warren, Britain’s only Olympic 600 metre champion.