Moorcroft had a remarkable season in 1982, where he broke the 5,000 m World Record by 5.79 seconds (without the use of pace-making). His time of 13:00.41 set at the Bislett Games in Oslo stood for three years until broken by Saïd Aouita (though it remained a British record until 2010). He remains the last non-African to set a 5,000 m world record. In the 1982 running season, he set a personal record in most distances, but probably ran too many races or for some other reason lost his peak shape before the European Athletics Championships in Athens. There he took the bronze medal at 5,000 metres, losing to West Germany's Thomas Wessinghage and East Germany's Werner Schildhauer.