The film is based on the book The Perfect Distance by Pat Butcher, with a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and Will Davies, and will reunite Radcliffe with Woman In Black director James Watkins.
It is not yet known who will play Ovett in the production.
Writer Beaufoy, who won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, told the BBC earlier this year the film was "a brilliant story" with a "perfect end".
"I hadn't realised how good it was until you dig into their past," he said. "They were fantastically different athletes and different people. And they rarely met... apart from on the track - but not very often, even on the track."
BBC Films and the British Film Institute have developed the project with AL Films. BBC Films’ head Christine Langan will executive produce, with distribution by Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s Embankment Films.
Haslam said: “Gold is a movie about an insatiable need to win, fuelled by intense ambition, only possible through the support of loving family.”
Harry Potter star Daniel can currently be seen starring as Beat writer Allen Ginsburg in Kill Your Darlings, with supernatural thriller Horns awaiting release.
Development is underway for Gold to shoot in the UK and Russia in April next year
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