Here we take a closer look at Dave Moorcroft’s stunning world record at 5000m from almost 40 years ago

World records by British athletes generally tend into fall of one of two categories. There are the records set as supreme form and the stimulus of major global championships combine as those set by David Hemery in 1968, Mary Peters in 1972, Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell in 1993 and Jonathan Edwards in 1995 where they won both gold medals and set world records with their best ever performances.

There are also the records from the likes of Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Roger Bannister and Brendan Foster that come in races where pacemakers knew exactly what pace was required by them and the athlete chasing the record knew he would only be out alone against the clock only in the closing stages.

Less frequently there have been cases where the athlete has done the work himself. Dave Bedford in his 1973 world 10,000m record was pretty much 25 laps of Bedford solo apart from a short spell in front by Tony Simmons.

While Bedford’s run was not signposted as a record attempt, it was not that shocking in that Bedford had previously set numerous European records over 5000m and 10,000m and was long thought of as a potential world record-holder.

That was not the case with Dave Moorcroft in 1982. He had won a Commonwealth 1500m title in 1978 and clearly had good endurance as he began to take the 5000m distance more seriously in 1980 and 1981. However, he was thought of more as a fast finisher than a front runner but no one thought he could break a world record and decimate it and do it solo.

His progression at 5000m had been the following.

1973: 14:31.0
1974: 14:04.8
1975: 14:06.8
1976: 13:58.4
1979: 13:30.33
1980: 13:29.1
1981: 13:20.51

The latter mark, while a big improvement only ranked him around 50th all-time prior to the Oslo race.

A reasonable amount of British media were present in Norway that night but Moorcroft’s race at the end of the meeting was not expected to provide the sensational result and many had already prepared their stories which included a British 2000m record for Steve Ovett of 4:57.71, a Commonwealth 3000m record for Wendy Sly (then Smith) of 8:46.01 behind Mary Decker (then Tabb), a 800m win for Gary Cook in 1:44.71 and an American mile record of Steve Scott of 3:47.69 which just missed Coe’s world record

Prior to this race, Moorcroft had ranked seventh all-time in Britain.
Brendan Foster 13:14.6 Christchurch 1974
Julian Goater 13:15.59 Zurich 1981
Dave Bedford 13:17.21 London 1972
Nat Muir 13:17.9 Oslo 1980
Ian McCafferty 13:19.66 London 1972
Nick Rose 13:20.35 Dusseldorf 1977
Dave Moorcroft 13:20.51 Lausanne 1981

He went into the race in Oslo, thinking a British record was possible and hoping the inclusion of world record-holder Henry Rono and fellow top Kenyan Peter Koech would take care of the pace and no pacemakers were included or even thought necessary.

Unfortunately the two Kenyans had raced the night before at Stockholm with Rono running the third fastest time in history with 13:08.97 – inferior only to his two world record runs – while Koech went second all-time with 13:09.50 and neither were ready to attack the world record again.

Though Moorcroft had no experience of front-running in a major race he quickly realised he was going to have to make the pace himself and he reeled off the following laps.

400m: 61.4
800m: 2:07.2 (65.8)
1200m: 3:08.5 (61.3)
1600m: 4:11.1 (62.6)
2000m: 5:12.6 (61.5)
2400m: 6:15.0 (62.4)
2800m: 7:18.5 (63.5)
3200m: 8:21.4 (62.9)
3600m: 9:25.4 (64.0)
4000m; 10:28.7 (63.3)
4400m: 11:31.0 (62.3)
4800m: 12:31.3 (60.3)
5000m: 13:00.41 (29.12)

Kilometre splits
1000m: 2:38.0
2000m: 5:12.6 (2:34.6)
3000m: 7:50.2 (2:37.6)
4000m: 10:28.7 (2:38.5)
5000m: 13:00.41 (2:31.8)

Half splits of 6:30.8 and 6:29.7

Nearly 40 years on, only Mo Farah has run faster among British athletes with his 12:53.11 ten-year-old UK record.

To read about Dave Moorcroft’s top 20 races read here

To see a list of his races between 1970 and 1982 go to the AW Clubhouse