Sebastian Coe tips 800 metre star Andrew Osagie for success at 2013 World Championships
Sebastian Coe has tipped 800 metre runner Andrew Osagie for World Championship success next summer
Last Updated: 17/12/12 11:56am
Osagie finished eighth in the 800m final in London in a race widely regarded as the greatest race at the Olympic Stadium, with a world record for gold medallist David Rudisha, the 24-year-old Essex boy trailed home last in a time that would have won the previous three Olympics.
The silver medal winner, Botswana's Nigel Amos, ran a world junior record; third, fourth and fifth all ran personal bests; sixth ran an Ethiopian national record; seventh ran a season's best. London 2012 chief Lord Coe labelled the race as his personal highlight of the summer.
Osagie's time of 1 minute 43.77 was more than a second and a half quicker than his personal best at the start of the year, and 2012 marked an impressive breakthrough with a world indoor bronze early on in 2012.
Coe praised Osagie for his impressive 2012 performance, he said: "I think his progress has been fantastic.
"If you said to Andrew Osagie at the beginning of the season you are going to run 1:43.8 in the final of the Olympic Games I think he would have taken that.
"I think he really showed maturity through those Games and I think that will be a great platform for the rest of his career."
Looking ahead to next summer's World Championships in Moscow, Coe added: "You enter an Olympic final then you are quite capable of getting into a World Championship final and if you are in a final you can win medals.
"I really hope that Andrew Osagie believes he can beat David Rudisha.
"I'm not saying that is the easiest ambition to realise, but there is no reason why Andrew Osagie should not be going to training believing he is quite capable of winning a medal in Moscow."
