BBC Films announced today the production of a screenplay based on The Perfect Distance, an account of the rivalry between Coe and Ovett 30 years ago, written by former Times athletics correspondent Pat Butcher.

Such a movie will be the first major British athletics-based film since the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire, which owed some of its popularity to the high profile enjoyed by the sport in the early 1980s because of the Ovett-Coe rivalry.

And given Coe’s role in winning the 2012 Olympics for London, this will undoubtedly give the film an added twist.

Between 1978 and 1983, Coe and Ovett set 14 outdoor world records, at distances from 800 metres to two miles.

Their world-famous rivalry was notoriously played out at one place remove, the pair trading records as they rarely met in a race on the track, with the notable exception of the 1980 Olympic Games, where Ovett beat Coe to the 800m gold medal, and Coe came back to take the 1500m title.

Coe successfully defended his Olympic title four years later in Los Angeles.

Today, BBC Films issued the following announcement: "BBC Films and AL Films are developing a film together about the celebrated Olympic rivalry between Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe, arguably the greatest athletics rivalry of all time.

"The film is due to be released prior to London 2012 Olympics.

"Joanna Anderson and Vicky Licorish of AL Films, the producers behind BBC 1’s recent hit Small Island, have signed up LA-based Brit writer William Davies (Flushed Away, Johnny English, Twins) to write the screenplay."

Anderson said: "Will is a fantastic writer who is a keen sportsman.

"He has been fired up by this story which means so much to a UK audience and is the British Olympic story which also gripped the US."

Christine Langan, creative director BBC Films, said: "This is a gem of a story, about British sporting life and more.

"Will’s take on it is very exhilarating and BBC Films is excited to be developing it with him and AL Films."