Sebastian Coe: London in ‘killing zone’ of Olympics preparations

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Tuesday marks two years to go to the July 27, 2012, opening of the London Summer Olympics.

To the man running the 2012 organizing committee, it is like being in the back straightaway of an 800 meters you are expected to win.

‘It’s the killing zone in the 800,’ Sebastian Coe said Friday. ‘Everything you do in the back straight determines the platform you create in the finishing straight.’’

And who knows that feeling better than Coe, one of the greatest middle-distance runners in history, a man who won two Olympic silver medals in the metric half-mile and held the world record for the distance from 1981 through 1997?

‘I broke 13 world records, and I don’t intend to break the 14th by being the first president of an organizing committee not to have it ready on the day we’re supposed to,’’ Coe said during a conference call with international media.

For more on Coe’s comments, check the Globetrotting blog.

-- Philip Hersh