For a long time now the Ivo Van Damme Memorial has lived, wrongly in my opinion, on its reputation for drawing huge crowds because of its innovative spirit rather than its high performance standards. And it is not easy in Brussels. The meeting is crammed into a busy calendar, generally after the important dates of the summer. And although it has never been wrecked by storms, the cool Brussels evenings and seemingly constant wind conspire to make top class performances harder to achieve. In an era when the success of an athletic meeting is determined by the gold standard of a world record, the meeting directed by Wilfred Meert, lived for years with the happy memory of Sebastian Coe's world record for the Mile, achieved on 29 August 1981.
1981 - Coe beats Ovett!
It was the fourth edition of the Memorial Van Damme. On that evening, in the old Heysel stadium, the future British Member of Parliament, sparked by the performance achieved by his arch-rival Steve Ovett 48 hours earlier in Koblenz (3:48.40), set about recovering what he felt was his by right.
Coe, paced by Tom Byers, set an astonishing pace from the gun. As the pack was blown apart, only Mike Boit managed to hang on, as the two leaders passed 400m in 54.92 and 800m in 1:52.67. At 1,100m the Olympic 1500m champion was all alone, but with a breathtaking last lap he maintained a respectable distance over Boit … and over Ovett too, crossing the line in 3:47.33 to turn the meeting into a carnival.
"Today everything was perfect", declared Coe at the finish, "The evening was mild, the weather excellent and the crowd great. I could never stress the importance of this enough, it is that which carried me to the record. Also, for the first time, I was pushed by a rival. Mike Boit stayed in touch for a long time and this made me work right until the end."
For many years, this world record remained unique on the Memorial roll of honour. Then, 14 years later in 1995, Maria Mutola of Mozambique finally ended the dry run, breaking the 1000m world record with 2:29.34. A year later Russia's Svetlana Masterkova improved this with 2:28.98 before Morocco's Salah Hissou set the 10,000m alight with 26:38.08 to make it two world records in one night.
1997 - Kenyans storm the Roi-Baudoin
On 22 August 1997 the brand new Roi-Baudoin Stadium, bathed in light and music, had its true hour of glory. That evening, Ethiopia's Haile Gebreselassie watched powerlessly from the athletes' stand as both his 5000m (12:41.86) and 10,000m (26:31.32) world records fell. Within a few minutes two Kenyans - Daniel Komen (12:39.74) and Paul Tergat (26:27.85), became the first men to break the 12:40 and 26:30 barriers respectively. Their pace was matched by the rhythm of African drummers who now occupied a special place in the corner of the stadium.
Komen, beaten by "Gebre" a week earlier in Zürich, was always ahead of the split times of his "favourite enemy." He was 4 seconds faster at 2 and 4km and still 2 seconds ahead when he crossed the line to record 12:39.74. "I knew that I was going to beat the record tonight, even though I died in the last kilometre, I felt as though nothing could stop me. 10 minutes before the race it began to rain; it was a sign of what was to come" stated Komen after completing his lap of honour.
The ecstatic crowd certainly got their money's worth by the end of the evening. In the final race, the 10,000m, without which the Ivo Van Damme Memorial would not be complete, Tergat trounced everyone, including Hissou. Although his personal best before the race was only 26:54.41, the Kenyan Army sergeant, who had prepared meticulously, stayed with the split times achieved by Gebrselassie until halfway. At this point, helped by his team mates, he upped the tempo gaining 8 seconds on the previous record in the space of 1000 metres. An advantage which he never lost as he went on to smash his personal best by 27 seconds ...
1999 - Mourhit boosts Belgian pride
All that was missing from the Van Damme Memorial's Book of Glory was a great Belgian performance. William Van Dijck, the 3000m steeplechase specialist, first achieved that in 1986, setting a world best performance for the year with 8:10.10, even if he was still more than two seconds outside the European record held by the Frenchman Joseph Mamoud.
On 3 September 1999, Mohammed Mourhit (or "Momo") made amends though. Still fired up from his 5000m bronze medal performance at the World Championships in Seville, and watched by his parents, who had arrived that day from Khourigba, Moroccan born Mourhit had a superb race. He shattered the European 10,000m record held by the Portugese Antonio Pinto by 20 seconds (26:52.30 compared to 27:12.47) as he finished just behind a little known Kenyan Charles Kamathi. Momo may have only been naturalised in 1997, but the memory of his lap of honour, draped in the Belgian flag, will be cherished for a long while to come.
Philippe Vande Weyer is the athletics correspondent of Le Soir newspaper in Brussels