Stephen Michael James "Steve" Ovett OBE (born 9 October 1955), is a former middle distance runner from England. He was gold medalist in the 800 metres at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, U.S.S.R., and set world records for 1500 metres and the mile run. To this day, he holds the UK record for 2 miles (3,219 m), which he set in 1978.

Born in Brighton, Sussex, and educated at Varndean School, Ovett was a talented teenage athlete. As a youngster, he showed great promise as a footballer, but gave it up for athletics, because he did not want to do a sport where he would have to rely on teammates.^{[citation needed]}

His first major athletics title came in 1973, when he won the European junior 800m, followed the next year in Rome with a silver in the senior event. He won AAA titles in the 800m from 1974 to 1976, in the 1500m in 1979 and in the mile in 1980. At age 18, he won the silver medal at 800 metres in the 1974 European Athletics Championships, setting a new European Junior 800m record of 1:45.77 in the process.

Mike McLeod (Michael James McLeod; born 25 January 1952 in Dilston, Northumberland) is a former British athlete who competed mainly in the 10,000 metres. Mike McLeod is also the uncle of 21st Century poet Adam Andrew McLeod.

He competed for Great Britain in the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles, United States in the 10,000 metres where he won the silver medal. McLeod only finished third but second placed Martti Vainio had been disqualified for taking anabolic steroids.

McLeod ran for Elswick Harriers of Newcastle upon Tyne from an early age winning many races on a regional, national and international scale. One of his greatest achievements was being presented with an Olympic Silver Medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984, the best performance by a British athlete to date. Twice winner of the Golden 10,000 metre which seems to be now known as the world championships. McLeod won the Morpeth to Newcastle road race on 5 occasions with 63 minutes and 25 seconds being his best time in 1980. He won the Saltwell Harriers 10k road race 17 years in a row. McLeod also won the first Great North Run and went on to win it again the following year. He competed abroad and won the Giro al Sas 10K race in Italy in 1984.

Ivo Van Damme (21 February 1954 – 29 December 1976) was a Belgian middle distance runner.

Van Damme was born in Dendermonde. He played football until he was 16, but then switched to athletics. His breakthrough came in 1973, when he placed fourth in the 800 m at the European Junior Championships.

He suffered from mononucleosis the following season, but returned strong beating Roger Moens's 1955 national 800 m record. In 1976, he won the European indoor title over this distance, and was one of the favourites for a medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. He eventually ended up second in both the 800 and 1500 m, finishing behind Alberto Juantorena and John Walker, respectively.

These were his last successes, as Van Damme was killed in a car accident later that year while travelling home from Marseille in southern France. He was to marry Rita Thijs in 1977. Since 1977, a memorial competition has been held in Brussels to remember him, the Memorial van Damme. It has become one of the major track and field meetings of the season.

Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe, KBE (born 29 September 1956), often known as Seb Coe, is an English former athlete and politician. As a middle distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and set eight outdoor and three indoor world records in middle distance track events (and also participated in a world record relay). His rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.

Following his retirement from athletics he served as a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party from 1992–97, and became a life peer in 2000. He was the head of the London bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, and, after the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to London, became the chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. In 2007, he was also elected a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. On 25 August 2011, he was re-elected for another four year term.

John Treacy (born 4 June 1957 in Villierstown near Dungarvan, County Waterford) is a former Irish athlete and Olympic medalist, who represented Ireland at four Olympic Games between 1980 and 1992.

Treacy attended St Anne's Post-Primary School in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, famously running the 12 km to school every morning, and later graduated from Providence College. In 1978 and 1979 he won the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Glasgow and Limerick respectively.

At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles he won a silver medal in the marathon, placing Ireland 33rd on the medals table.

Treacy was known as a tenacious runner who did not have a particularly sharp final kick in the track races. He did occasionally suffer also from bad luck, however. In the 1978 European Athletics Championships in Prague, then Czechoslovakia, he placed 11th in the fast 10,000-metre race and fourth in the slow and tactical 5,000-metre race, losing to the winner, Italy's Venanzio Ortis, by just three tenths of a second. In the 5,000-metre final, he may have lost the chance of a medal by lingering behind Great Britain's Nick Rose on the final back straight, just after Rose had dropped from the lead group.