THE father, mentor and coach of Sebastian Coe, the former Olympic champion and head of the London 2012 Games, died yesterday morning, hours after his son had left his hospital bedside to travel to Beijing.

Peter Coe, who inspired his son to more world records than any other British athlete, was 88.

He had been gravely ill for several days, initially prompting his son to delay his trip to China last week.

Peter Coe was a tough, self-taught coach who introduced his son to gruelling new training techniques, leading him to consecutive Olympic gold medals at 1500m and an 800m world record that remained unbroken for 16 years.

“My father had an extraordinary influence on my life,” Coe told The Sunday Times last month. “There’s rarely a day we don’t speak on the phone. When I was an athlete, there was nobody better to have in your corner.” Encouragement was tempered with bluntness. When Coe came second to Steve Ovett, his great rival, during the 800m final at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, his father told him: “You ran like an idiot.”

Born in east London, Peter Coe was only 19 when the merchant navy ship on which he was serving was torpedoed in the Atlantic. One of five survivors, he was picked up by a German destroyer, but escaped being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

He fled across France, over the Pyrenees and into fascist Spain, where he was jailed for six months and “really badly knocked around”, according to his son.

The funeral is not expected to take place for at least another 10 days. Sebastian Coe will remain in China until then.