Harry Potter's Radcliffe to play Coe in athletics film

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LONDON: Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is to play British athletics great Sebastian Coe in a film about his rivalry with fellow middle-distance runner Steve Ovett, filmmakers announced on Wednesday.

"Gold" will examine the tussles between countrymen Coe and Ovett, who exchanged titles and world records during the early 1980s.

Ovett beat Coe over 800 metres at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, but Coe claimed revenge in the 1,500m final six days later and successfully defended his title at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Coe went on to head the organising committee of the 2012 London Olympics and is the current chairman of the British Olympic Association.

The film is expected to focus on Coe and Ovett's preparations for the 1980 Olympics, but it has not yet been announced who will play Ovett.

"You were either an Ovett person or a Coe person and that's what makes it such a great character piece as well," said the film's producer, Vicky Licorish.

Filming for the movie, which was first announced in February 2010, is expected to begin in April next year.

The screenplay will be based on an account of the rivalry in a book called "The Perfect Distance" by British athletics journalist Pat Butcher.

Radcliffe, 24, shot to fame by playing the title role in eight film adaptations of J.K. Rowling's blockbuster series of books about child wizard Harry Potter.