In 1983, athlete Steve Cram was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, ahead of figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and decathlete Daley Thompson. Capitalising on the absence of his two main middle-distance rivals, compatriots Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, through injury, Cram had won gold medals in the 1,500 metres at both the European Athletics Championships in Athens and the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982.
However, in 1983, his career took another step forward when, on August 14, he won the gold medal in the 1,500 metres at the inaugural World Athletics Championships in Helsinki. Having beaten Ovett in his semi-final, in a championship record time of 3:35.77, the ‘Jarrow Arrow’, as Cram was affectionately known, faced 11 rivals in the final, including Ovett and Said Aouita of Morocco, the fastest man in the world that season.
Aouita struck for home approaching the bell but, using his long stride to good effect, Cram tackled the leader early, and took the race by the scruff of the neck inside the final 200 metres. Down the home straight he never seriously looked like being caught and although American record holder Steve Smith closed, passing the weakening Aouita, Cram was always holding him and came home in a relatively slow 3:41.59 to win the gold medal. Ovett, for his part, came from an unpromising position to finish fourth, in 3:42.34.
Later that year, Cram met Ovett again, in the popular Coca-Cola meeting at Crystal Palace. He confirmed the Helsinki form, but only just, winning, by his own admission, “by little more than the thickness of a vest”. Indeed, a clip of that epic race was shown during the SPOTY awards ceremony, with commentary by David Coleman, who also hosted the show. At the conclusion of the race, Coleman said, fittingly, “Cram so modest in victory, Ovett so generous in defeat; a duel to remember, from which both emerged with honour.”
Cram went on to win the silver medal in the 1,500 metres at the 1984 Summer Olympics, behind Coe, and between July 16 and August 4, 1985, set world records for 1,500 metres, a mile and 2,000 metres. He eventually retired from competitive athletics in 1994.