He first ran against his great rival Steve Ovett in a schools cross country race in 1972.

Neither won, nor did either win in their first major encounter in the European Championships Prague in 1978 in an 800 metre race, where Ovett ( breaking Coe's UK record with a run of 1: 44. 09 ) was second and Coe finished third behind the East German Olaf Beyer.

In the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Ovett and Coe won each other's speciality ; Ovett the 800 metres, and Coe the 1500 metres ( Coe came in second in the 800 after running what he described as " the worst tactical race of my life ", while Ovett took third in the 1500 ).

As Ovett raced away from the field, Ron Pickering, commenting for the race on BBC Television, said " and there's one man's blazing speed, that has torn this field asunder ".

At the time the British press reported that Coe and Ovett had clashed after the race but Coe later revealed: " When Steve came over, he put his hand on my shoulder and said something.

Ovett suffered a famous upset in a 1500m race in Oslo that year.

With Ovett and Coe so dominant and Coe not involved in the race, Ovett was hot favourite.

In 1980, the world mile record was set in this race by Steve Ovett, and in 1985 Steve Cram also set a new world mile record.

The 1500 metres at the Bislett Games in 1981 became part of track folklore when star athletes including Steve Ovett chose not to follow pacemaker Tom Byers but race among themselves.

In 1885 the explorer Archibald Meston described the Barron Falls in flood where the raging waters " rush together like wild horses as they enter the straight in the dread finish of their last race ... ( where ) the currents of air created by the cataract waved the branches of the trees hundreds of feet overhead ... the rock shook like a mighty steamer tumbling with the vibrations of the screw.

Normally, when a motorcycle and / or rider are incapacitated on the race track, a red flag is waved and the race stopped so the track can be safely cleared.

In September at Loudon New Hampshire, Tony Stewart lead part of the final stages trying to hold off Clint Bowyer for RCR who dominated the race ; when the white flag waved the fans saw that Tony Stewart was out of gas ; Bowyer passed him and won both the white flag and the checkers.

Thus, the disadvantage of losing laps means the chances of earning a free pass under the Beneficiary Rule is harder, since a driver losing two laps under a green-flag pit stop would have to race his way past the leader before the caution waved to regain one of his laps back, unless there are no cars one lap behind.

Jim Clark celebrated Hogmanay by dominating the race, leading from pole and breaking the 100 mph barrier, winning by half a minute from Graham Hill and John Surtees and even had time to complete an extra lap after the chequered flag was waved a lap too early.

But even after this incident, the race continued, and as the field was about to start the second lap, with marshals and Stohr's disabled car still on the circuit, cars passed by with very little space, and the marshals frantically waved at the drivers to stop and the confused drivers waved back at the marshals, who were still on the circuit as the cars passed by.

On lap 29, Prost waved to the stewards of the race to indicate that he felt the race should be stopped ( he was also suffering from a major brake imbalance as his McLaren's carbon brakes were locking due to not generating enough heat in the conditions ).

Before the race, it emerged that Villeneuve had been put to the back of the grid, for having ignored waved yellow flags on two consecutive laps during a practice session for the race.

Fernando Alonso failed to slow for the waved yellow flags, and hit one of Webber's tyres at full speed on the 55th lap ; his Renault crashed into a tyre wall protecting a guardrail, the impact damaging the barrier and sending car tyres across the circuit, effectively blocking the track and making continuation of the race, even behind the safety car, impossible.

The race was delayed a week by heavy rains but on August 17 the green flag was waved by Juan Manuel Fangio.

Race winner Ayrton Senna had waved furiously from his cockpit that the conditions were too wet to race.

In addition, an American flag was waved along with the twin checkered flags to end the race.

When the crowd was asked whether it wanted to wait one more term to make the race, it voted no -- and there were no dissents.

Blaine emerged and told the crowd " I saw something very prophetic ... a vision of every race, every religion, every age group banding together, and that made all this worthwhile.

As the race progresses, the crowd influence becomes more intrusive, with several bystanders trying to give aid to the Walkers by selling cokes, giving away watermelon, or in one case, a Walker's mother attempts to pull her son from the race.

Traditionally, the 4x400 metre relay finals are the last event of a track meet, and is often met with a very enthusiastic crowd, especially if the last leg is a close race.

However, the race was called complete after 143 laps giving Richards the win, and not to crowd favourite Dick Johnson ( who took the lead following Richards ' crash ).

The track ( which could accommodate 2, 000 patrons in the clubhouse and another 4, 000 in the grandstand ) had an attendance of well over 12, 000 people ( its second-largest crowd since 1962 ) Funny Cide was the first winner of a Triple Crown race to run at Finger Lakes in its 46-year history.

However, the race was plagued by crowd control problems, which led to spectator deaths and injuries, and the cancellation of the 1907 event.

The Phoenix street circuit was laid out in downtown Phoenix and was unpopular with drivers and the local crowd ; apocryphally, the 1990 event was outdrawn threefold by an ostrich race in the suburb of Chandler.

The crowd at the 2000 race was estimated at over 225, 000, perhaps the largest ever in F1.

He assembles a team consisting of a corrupt cop ( Ted de Corsia ), a betting window teller ( Elisha Cook Jr .) to give access to the backroom, a sharpshooter ( Timothy Carey ) to shoot the favorite horse during the race to distract the crowd, a wrestler ( Kola Kwariani ) to provide another distraction by provoking a fight at the track bar and a track bartender ( Joe Sawyer ).

On 16 April 1938, Mount Panorama attracted 20, 000 spectators to its first race, The Australian Tourist Trophy and in 2006 the crowd figure reached 194, 000 for the 3 day Bathurst 1000 event.

Bourdais, Tagliani, and Quebec driver Andrew Ranger asked for the crowd to boo him at the next race in Montreal, on the weekend of August 26.

The latter race drew a record crowd for a race in Western New York.

The stadium was also the scene of the UK's first stock car race at Easter 1954, with 26, 000 in the crowd and thousands more locked outside.

Gulf Air's sponsorship of the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix continued, with a record race crowd and a global TV audience.

Stewart worked around this by entering a USAC National Midget race under the pseudonym " Smoke Johnson " with the crowd at the track none the wiser.

He followed this with The Derby Day, depicting scenes among the crowd at the race at Epsom Downs, which was based on photographic studies by Robert Howlett.

A crowd estimated at over 200, 000, including the Queen and other members of the British royal family, was in attendance to view the most valuable race ever run in Britain.

After the tragic events at the dangerously fast and confined space of Montjuic, the Spanish Grand Prix was confined to Jarama until 1981, after which it was dropped from the racing calendar because of the unpleasant conditions and small crowd at the 1981 race.

One week later, he repeated the success in a non-Championship F1 race in front of Porsche's home crowd at Stuttgart's Solitude race track.

Daly, along with Aaron Peskin, was instrumental in the canceling of the San Francisco Grand Prix, a world-class bicycle race held from 2001 to 2005, because of disagreements over the amount to be paid for traffic and crowd control and because the race's backers owed the city $ 89, 924.