So Daniel Radcliffe - aka Harry Potter - has been chosen to play Sebastian Coe in "Gold", the forthcoming film drama about his rivalry with fellow Olympian Steve Ovett. It is not yet known who will play Ovett, but it can surely be only a matter of time before the name of Tom Felton - aka Potter's Hogwarts nemesis Draco Malfoy - pops into the frame.

Such casting would reflect the prevailing attitude to these two great Great British middle distance runners who turned 800 and 1500 metres running into a private rivalry in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with Coe, a Loughborough University graduate, filling the role of the media savvy Good Guy while the street-smart Ovett, son of a market trader in Brighton, seemed to go out of his way to come across as Mr Awkward.

I only caught the tail-end of the great Ovett-Coe rivalry. I saw both run at the 1989 AAA Championships, and witnessed Coe's last track championship track outing when, unwell, he finished sixth in the 1990 Commonwealth 800m final in Auckland.

Steve Ovett and Seb Coe pictured shortly before one of their early battles

I do recall one highly experienced athletics writer of the time expanding on his marked preference for Coe over Ovett, for the principle reason that whereas the former would talk to him the latter would not. He told me how, after winning the European 1500m title in 1978, he was asked plaintively if he had any words for the waiting press, and responded with just two: "Happy Christmas".

To me, as to most others who had followed their careers, they were figures read about in the papers or, occasionally, witnessed on the TV. And very, very occasionally witnessed on the TV together.

By the time these two athletes hung up their spikes they had been operating at the highest levels for well over a decade, and yet they only ever raced each other 10 times in 15 years - the first of these being a schoolboy cross-country meeting.

Historically, getting Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett together has never been easy. Much of this had to do with the wily manipulations of the man who acted as Ovett's agent - and indeed best man - during his purple period in the late Seventies and early Eighties, the former British Athletic Federation's Promotions Officer Andy Norman. But not all.

Steve Ovett (centre) and Seb Coe (right) pictured at this year's IAAF Diamond League meeting in Oslo along with another British great middle distance runner, Steve Cram

Both men were acutely aware of each other's intentions and exploits, as they happily acknowledged one morning in Melbourne during the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Given their record, it was something of a relief to all when both showed up as per the programme to a self-styled "executive breakfast" at a restaurant alongside the Yarra River to discuss their glorious years of "tit-for-tat" and then co-host a seminar for young Australian athletes.

This time, thankfully, there were no collisions with church railings (Ovett) nor untimely bouts of toxoplasmosis (Coe).

Coe, whose part in securing London the 2012 Olympics meant he was as high profile then as he ever was in his running career, was little changed from the dark-haired, wiry figure who broke three different world records in the space of 41 days in 1979, although the gaunt cheekbones of his superfit days were gone.

Ovett - who had lived for several years in a plush house on the Gold Coast - was a balding and somewhat portly figure, a partial legacy of being hit by a lorry while cycling near his former home in Scotland and being left unable to exercise.

It was clear that their rivalry had softened into a playful, faintly affectionate relationship.

Steve Ovett victorious as he beats Sebastian Coe to the line in the Moscow 1980 800m

Ovett admitted, however, that he had felt obliged to alter his approach to the sport when Coe began his world record-breaking exploits in order to match him flourish for flourish.

"I was quite happy to win races up to that point," he said. "But then there was another bar we had to climb over, and Seb had set it up. If someone your own age and from your own country suddenly starts breaking world records, what do you do - sit back and let him have the action to himself? No. You try to get part of it.

"People wanted us to do it. And it was a pleasure anyway to try to do it. If you are really fit, if you are really on song, it's not that difficult."

Coe, in turn, acknowledged that their insistence at the time that neither was affected by the other's exploits was hollow.

"I remember Christmas morning before the 1980 Games," he said. "I'd run a 10 or 12-miler and then had my Christmas lunch, but I felt uneasy the whole afternoon. I suddenly realised what it was and thought: 'I bet that bastard is doing another training session'." At which point Ovett, grinning, added: "So you only did two training sessions?"

The forthcoming film - based on the book The Perfect Distance, by the excellent Pat Butcher – has had its screenplay written by Will Davies and Simon Beaufoy, whose previous credits include The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, for which he won an Oscar.

It takes as its subject the intensifying rivalry which culminated in the extraordinary volte face at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where Ovett won the 800m which Coe was expected to win, and Coe then redeemed himself by winning the 1500 expected to go to the man who had arrived in Russia unbeaten over three years and 42 races.

"There's a brilliant symmetry to that," said Beaufoy, who described Ovett as "the perceived bad boy" of the piece, adding:

"I tried to speak to Steve Ovett, but true to form...he doesn't want to. He never in his career talked to journalists ever, famously refusing interviews.

"Sebastian Coe will give an interview at the drop of a hat, also true to form, Very polite, very media conscious, very aware of his image. They both are. They both respond in completely different ways."

Sebastian Coe redeemed, as he recovers from defeat to Steve Ovett to win the Moscow 1980 Olympic 1500m title

In Melbourne, both men watched a screening of that Moscow 800m final. Noting that Ovett was boxed in, the BBC commentator David Coleman speculated "What will he do? Try to barge his way through?" Seconds later the lean, mean figure did just that.

Ovett accepted that victory in the first race may have dulled his hunger for the subsequent 1500m.

"As a kid," he said, "I wanted to win an Olympics - end of story. Some people set goals, and I was that sort of guy. Other people, like Seb, go beyond those goals.

"There was tremendous pressure on us both, and when I crossed the line it was a wonderful relief that I had done what was expected of me. I ticked the box, and part of me must have been thinking, 'I've done enough. Let me go home.' But having said that, I gave the 1500m 100 per cent, no question."

As for Coe, the question was raised again - would he have retired if he had not returned to win the 1500m? "I don't know the answer to that," he responded. Thankfully for him, and athletics history, he never needed to know.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.