Lord Coe
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010
BBC
4.4 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2009
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is Sebastian Coe.
It is more than a quarter of a century since his rivalry with fellow middle-distance runner Steve Ovett enraptured the nation.
After retiring from the racetrack, he enjoyed a career in politics. Now, though, his focus is on the Olympics once again - not on individual medals this time, but ensuring the 2012 games in London are a success.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Record: The Closest Thing to Crazy, Katie Melua Book: Such Sweet Thunder: Benny Green on Jazz Luxury: A piano and guide to playing it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest |
| 0:25.4 | heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.4 | Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island |
| 0:34.6 | Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:41.2 | For more information about the programme, please visit BBC.co.com.ukes slash Radio 4. My castaway this week is Sebastian Co. |
| 1:07.3 | From Olympic champion to championing the Olympics, his continuous will to win has powered him through a life tight-packed with drama and achievement. |
| 1:16.9 | A multiple medal winner on the athletics track, his style and grace as a middle-distance runner saw him compare to Nureyev. |
| 1:24.0 | In his current role, delivering a successful Olympic Games to London in 2012, he might more |
| 1:29.1 | usefully be likened to Houdini. |
| 1:31.8 | The nature of success, he says, is entirely determined by the individual. |
| 1:36.6 | There is always an opportunity to rise above a given set of circumstances and make the world |
| 1:42.9 | notice you. |
| 1:44.5 | And in being noticed, of course, Sebco, you will also be judged. |
| 1:48.1 | Does that hold no fear for you? |
| 1:50.7 | Not really. |
| 1:51.7 | I guess that the nature of everything I did in track and field was judgment all the time. |
| 1:58.0 | So it tends to be the world I lived in. |
| 2:03.4 | And of course, one of the, |
| 2:09.7 | you know, the ultimate judgments was getting my UB40 at 20 past five in a drafty sports hall in Camborne in 1997 when politically a career finished. So judgment has never been that far from me. |
| 2:17.0 | The certainties, though, not of politics, but certainly of the running track, you know, where |
| 2:23.0 | the finish line is, you know the time pretty much that you've got to be, those certainties |
| 2:28.2 | are not in place with 2012 because of course you've got an often fickle public, a sometimes |
... |
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