Without Ceremony, Elliott Is Taking Over : Track and field: He’s the heir apparent to the British middle-distance tradition.

A new decade is the signal for a changing of the guard in the esteemed ranks of British middle-distance runners.

The 1980s belonged to Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, whose accomplishments are part of track and field lore.

In the ‘90s, Cram, the world record-holder in the mile, will most likely still be a factor, along with a 27-year-old steel mill carpenter who is emerging as perhaps the next great British runner.

Peter Elliott, who will run the mile tonight in the Times/Eagle Indoor Games at the Forum, has served his apprenticeship and is apparently ready to be acclaimed internationally.

The track and field season has just begun, but Elliott has already won the 1,500 meters in the Commonwealth Games at Auckland, New Zealand, and made a bold bid last Friday to break Eamonn Coghlan’s world indoor mile record of 3 minutes 49.78 seconds in the Meadowlands Invitational at East Rutherford, N.J.

Elliott didn’t do it, but considering that his competition failed to challenge him, his time of 3:52.02 was commendable.

He has had his share of disappointments, beginning with the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

While warming up for the semifinals of the 800 meters, he had to pull out of the race with a painful stress fracture in his foot.

Four years elapsed before Elliott could get a shot at another Olympic medal, this time in Seoul.

“I was running well all season and made the final of the 800,” Elliott said. “As I was warming up for the final, the muscles around my abdomen seized.”

An injection enabled Elliott to compete, and he finished fourth, missing the bronze medal by six-hundredths of a second.

The trials in the 1,500 were still ahead, and Elliott took a pain-killing shot 20 minutes before every heat. He was determined to get to the final of the 1,500, which he did.

“I thought it would be more painful to watch an Olympic final that I thought I could win, especially after pulling out in L.A.,” Elliott said.

Elliott ran second by a stride to Kenya’s Peter Rono, who had a time of 3:35.95 to Elliott’s 3:36.15.

Elliott didn’t have to prove anything to himself in the 1988 Olympics, but his performance quieted the clamor at home that he shouldn’t have represented Britain in two races.

The background:

Elliott won the 1,500 in his country’s Olympic trials, after previously being selected for the 800 because he had run the fastest time in Britain that season.

“The trials were held over only two days, and it was very difficult to run both the 800 and 1,500,” Elliott said. “Coe just ran the 1,500 and got knocked out in a heat.”

Then, a British tabloid ran a cartoon depicting Coe as a thoroughbred, Elliott as a cart horse.

“They were trying to get the public on Seb’s side, saying he should have the right to defend his Olympic title at 1,500 meters,” Elliott said.

“They really shouldn’t have had a go at me because I won the trials at 1,500 meters. What they should have been doing is having a go at the guy who finished second (Steve Crabb), or Steve Cram, who was pre-selected for the 1,500.”

There was also a tabloid phone-in poll that asked, “Who should go, Elliott or Coe?”

“It just stirred up the public,” Elliott said, “and I got a lot of hate mail. It got totally out of hand.”

The furor died after Elliott’s performance in the Olympics.

“I got a full-page apology from the Daily Mirror,” he said.

Elliott said the British selection system for major competitions has been changed.

Instead of sending the first two finishers in the trials, along with a third to be pre-selected, two athletes will be selected on the basis of performances, along with the winner of the race in the trials.

Elliott said he is using the indoor season as a buildup for the outdoor season and is pointing to the European Championships in Yugoslavia later in the year.

“With four or five races indoors, you find out what kind of shape you are in and it gives you confidence for the summer,” Elliott said.

Elliott, a resident of Rotherham in South Yorkshire County, works four hours a day as a carpenter, his trade since he was 16.

“Some athletes train in the morning and sit around all afternoon in a hotel room,” Elliott said. “I couldn’t do that every day. When you’re injured, you’re still guaranteed a little money.”

Track and Field Notes

Doug Padilla will run the two-mile instead of the 3,000 meters tonight in an effort to break the world indoor record of 8:13.2 set by Belgium’s Emiel Puttemans in Berlin in 1973. Padilla is the American record-holder in 8:15.3. . . . The meet begins at 6:30 p.m.

Other accomplished athletes in the meet include milers Marcus O’Sullivan and Steve Scott, hurdlers Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Tonie Campbell, quarter-milers Antonio McKay and Diane Dixon, sprinter Dawn Sowell and Romanian Doina Melinte, the world record-holder in the mile, who will run the 800 meters tonight. . . . Danny Everett, former UCLA star who set a world indoor record of 45.04 seconds in the 500 meters at Stuttgart, West Germany, will compete at that distance tonight. “I didn’t go there for a record, just a best performance,” Everett said.