In short
Podcast Episode Notes: The Sports Agents - "Was she tripped? The most infamous Olympic collision: Mary Decker v Zola Budd"
Episode Overview In this episode, hosts Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman delve into one of the most controversial moments in Olympic history: the 1984 clash between Mary Decker and Zola Budd during the women's 3000 meters final. The episode highlights the political, personal, and athletic dimensions of the incident that led to a defining moment in sports history.
Key Characters
- Mary Decker: American middle-distance runner, the reigning world champion, and seen as the "golden girl" of American athletics.
- Zola Budd: South African runner who gained a British passport and competed in the Olympics amid the backdrop of apartheid.
- Mark Pougatch & Paul Hayward: Hosts of the episode who guide the discussion and provide insights.
Background
- Setting: 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, marking the first time women competed in the 3000 meters.
- Political Context: Zola Budd's situation as a South African athlete during apartheid and her rapid acquisition of British citizenship through her father's British heritage.
The Rivalry
- The episode discusses the intense rivalry and contrasting backgrounds of both athletes:
- Mary Decker: Experienced numerous injuries, faced family issues, and had a history of competitive spirit.
- Zola Budd: Grew up in rural South Africa, ran barefoot, and was largely unaware of the political storm surrounding her.
The Infamous Collision
- Race Dynamics: As the race progresses, both runners engage in tactical maneuvers. The tension builds as they run close together.
- The Fall: The collision occurs approximately 1700 meters into the race:
- Decker makes contact with Budd, resulting in her falling and suffering injuries.
- Initial reactions blame Budd, despite evidence suggesting Decker's movements led to the fall.
Aftermath and Impact
- Public Reaction: Zola Budd is booed by the crowd, while Decker receives sympathy, framing Budd as the antagonist.
- Media Narratives: The narrative evolves, with reports shifting blame towards Decker as analysts review the incident.
- Long-term Effects: Both athletes' careers are impacted significantly:
- Decker continues to face challenges in subsequent Olympic events.
- Budd faces her own struggles, including a ban for attending a race in South Africa in 1988.
Themes and Discussions
- Media Influence: The role of the media in shaping public perception and narratives around athletes and events.
- Pressure of Competition: The immense pressure athletes face during the Olympics and how it affects their performance.
- Political and Social Issues: The episode highlights the interplay of sports and politics, especially as it relates to apartheid and national identity.
Conclusion
- The episode ends with reflections on how a brief moment of contact forever intertwined the careers and legacies of both Mary Decker and Zola Budd, highlighting the complexities of sports beyond just competition.
Call to Action
- Listeners are encouraged to engage with the podcast by subscribing, rating, and sharing their thoughts, as well as suggesting future topics for exploration.
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Episode Production Details
- Executive Producer: Adonis Pratsides
- Producer: Sophie Penney
- Director of Podcasts: Vicky Etchells
Note: This summary captures the key points and themes discussed in the podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and readers interested in the intersection of sports, politics, and personal stories within the Olympic context.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Paul Hayward:This is a Global Player Original Podcast.
0:07Mark Pougatch:An Olympic final has an extra frisson when two arch rivals are going head to head. Think back to our past episodes on Ben Johnson against Carl Lewis in Seoul in 88 and Sebco's rivalry with Steve Ovette eight years earlier in Moscow. Today we're going back to Los Angeles in 1984 for the 3000 metres. California's Mary Decker world champion on home turf America's golden girl to some extent against away from Bloemfontein Zola Budd who'd acquired a British passport in double quick time to line up against her own will in many ways in LA's Coliseum What happened in the next five minutes has gone down in Olympic history How did two such different characters end up being the main protagonists in one of the Olympics most infamous moments and what were the long-term effects on both runners.
0:59Mark Pougatch:This is how it all played out.
1:10Mark Pougatch:Well, Paul, more people asked us to do this episode than any other. It's really interesting that an infamous clash of fall, Mary Decker and Zola Budd, that so many people got in touch and said, please, can you do this one? Because we love doing our Olympic episodes. If you haven't heard the dirtiest race in history, please go listen to that. Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis from 1988 or the great Co-Avac rivalry from 80 to 84 and so forth. But this one, this and you and I are lucky. We've been to loads of Olympics and you always think, are we going to see another? Are we actually going to see a fall in a major race?
1:42Paul Hayward:Yeah, there's a reason I think why these Olympic controversies are immortal. And that's because the whole world is watching the Olympics. And there are these moments in the story of the Olympics when something happens, the unexpected happens, the sort of tragicomic intervenes, you know, in the usual parade of medals and events. And for some reason, they lodge themselves in our memories. And there's nothing quite like a rivalry in a final and one of the protagonists ending up on the deck unexpectedly to stay in your memory.
2:16Mark Pougatch:so if you'd like us to do any sort of episode please get in touch with us please email us and please make sure you follow and rate and subscribe and we can bring you so many of these episodes so a bit like we do with billy jean king and bobby riggs we'll take one athlete each so you're going
2:30Paul Hayward:to take zola budd from bloomfontein i am going to take zola budd from bloomfontein um zola budd from britain in a roundabout way and this is probably quite a timely moment to be talking about passport applications and some being rushed through and some being held up. So the Buds was certainly rushed through. But it all starts on the 5th of January 1984 at the Kurtzenberg Stadium in Stellenbosch, where a 17-year-old woman running bare feet smashes the world 5 ,000-meter record at the age of 17. Held by Mary Decker. Held by Mary Decker. Now, this is a world record, but it's not officially recognized as such because South Africa is a pariah.
3:15Paul Hayward:We're still six years away from Nelson Mandela being released from prison. And South Africa is in disgrace. It's not recognized as a figure in the international sporting scene. So at that point, this incredible young woman, Zola Budd, running barefoot, breaking a world record in her teenage years, is an outcast. She's a pariah. She's she's in one sense an irrelevance because the record will not be recognized. But in another sense, she's a global news story. And there's a man at the Daily Mail, the sports editor there who was a keen runner himself, very knowledgeable man about track and field. John Bryant, who spots it and thinks that's a story.
3:56Mark Pougatch:And so he says to his correspondent, Peter Young Husband, go and write this up. and they write it up on the 2nd of March and it appears they find out that Zolabud's dad, Frank, is born in Great Britain. And now they're going, aha, hang on a second. That means Zolabud is eligible for a British passport. One of your predecessors, the great Ian Wooldrews, a great sports writer, said, Zolabud is the hottest property in world athletics. Not surprisingly, there are others after. The US are going, well, we can offer you a scholarship. You can come here. The Italians are after her. but the big I'm sorry to say this but this is a story of two shits for fathers Mary Decker and Zola Budd isn't it
4:36Paul Hayward:and Frank Budd
4:37Mark Pougatch:Zola's father is a grade one shit
4:39Paul Hayward:yeah he is he's not really part of the picture at this point because what we're seeing is an act of opportunism by it's the editor of the Daily Mail who drives this David English spots this and realises that they can own this story and they can buy this story as well and and so once the Daily Mail gets into action to get Zola Budd almost kind of airlifted out of South Africa into the into the UK sporting scene you know it's going to happen and it's it's it's quite funny to think of it now really that while the world is is ostracizing apartheid there's a level of opportunism in the UK where the British sporting authorities and the British government and the mail are saying actually there's one there's one over there we think we can get them because they've got a British grandfather.
5:26Paul Hayward:Let's get them in, strengthen our team, win a gold medal and call it British.
5:30Mark Pougatch:This is all against her will, though, Paul. The reason I'm having a go at Frank Budd is he makes 80 grand for it. He wants to meet the Queen for tea. Well, he sells the story, doesn't he? He gets 80 grand for it and Zola Budd gets 20 grand for it in a trust fund. But he, the father, Frank Budd, and John Simpson, who's from IMG, the big sports agents who were involved in this, to be fair to him, he doesn't want Zola Budd to come yet. He thinks it's far too soon to be taking a young girl out of rural South Africa and plonking her in England with the Olympics a few months away. He says, wait till 88.
6:00Mark Pougatch:They went, no, no, no, no, Frank, but I want to go now. John Simpson says, parents of athletes should really remain in the background, not leading it. It always ends in tears. Zola Budd said, I don't want to go to the Olympics. I don't want to go. Is anyone going to ask me? No. Poor thing has to go to her bedroom and have a cry with her cat, Stompy.
6:17Paul Hayward:and she's so naive at this point that she supposedly or she claims never to have heard of Nelson Mandela I mean there is such a thing as an isolated Afrikaner upbringing obviously but you would think by 17 she'd have heard of Nelson Mandela whether she had or not she is heading towards a political tornado and she's being pushed into it really she has no cognizance I don't think of what's coming her way. And the barefoot thing, the fact that she ran barefoot adds so much to this. Had she worn shoes like a conventional athlete, it would have made the news. You know, there's a brilliant 5 ,000-meter runner down in South Africa.
6:58Paul Hayward:She's just broken the world record. She can't compete internationally. Great, but ultimately, so what? But the fact that she runs without shoes, there's something sort of magical about that. There's an extra ingredient there because people are used to seeing black African athletes train and run without shoes. But nobody has seen a world-class white athlete run to that level with no footwear. So it's weird to think that just by taking her shoes off, she catapulted herself into this world that she had no chance of recognizing.
7:31Mark Pougatch:She used to run barefoot with her sister Jenny, and then her sister died when Zola was a teenager. So in a way, she was running to a skirt. I mean, she was almost like a surrogate mother, Jenny, because she was that much older than her, a decade older. So she's running. I mean, this is so familiar to people. It's running to escape, running to be in charge of her own destiny, in charge of her own agency. Control, yeah, absolutely. She had three posters on her wall, athletics posters. Seb Coe, Steve Ovette, Mary Decker. I mean, Mary Decker. She applies, they apply, the Daily Mail. Because the Daily Mail and the Tory government, the Atchurch government are clearly very, very good friends.
8:06Mark Pougatch:I'm not saying she applied. The application for her passport goes in on March the 26th, 1984 in Croydon. And it's granted, Leon Britton, the Home Secretary, is in personal charge of it. It is granted on April the 7th. It's granted in two weeks.
8:22Paul Hayward:Yeah, the late, great Ian Woldridge told this story as brilliantly as you'd expect. And he remembers David English, the editor of the Mail, saying to him, I can pick up this phone and get her a British passport in two days. So this is the Margaret Thatcher administration. It'd be fair to say that they and the Mail are pretty much eye to eye on most political ideas. So there is a there is a relationship there. And just to flesh this out a bit for listeners, you know, people suspect the papers of influencing politicians too much now in terms of front pages, splashes on who you should vote for and that sort of thing and a drip, drip of coverage.
9:04Paul Hayward:But back then, the relationship really was symbiotic. So editors would have been in and out of 10 Downing Street all the time. The Thatcher administration would have been working overtime to keep the Tory press on side. And it was it was very much a blood brother relationship. look at the date as well miners strike exactly miners strike we're right in the middle of the miners strike here as well absolutely so so in the middle of the miners strike the thatcher administration needs all the friends it can get it needs to keep its existing friends very very close so however it happens the thatcher administration mainly through leon britain the home secretary who's kind of minded to to expedite zola pudd's reinvention as a british citizen.
9:45Paul Hayward:He's in favour, but Geoffrey Howe, who I think is the foreign minister, is less than happy because he realises what this is going to do. Anybody with a British grandparent anywhere in the world is suddenly going to start demanding a passport within two days. He's got the integrity to realise that it reflects very badly on the government, but Leon Britton has got sort of dollar signs in his eyes and brushes it through.
10:08Mark Pougatch:So they rent a flat in Surrey and it's got security guards on it and this is a young girl who's been running barefoot through the veldt yeah is now running through the wet and windy streets of guildford nothing wrong with guildford guildford but you know she doesn't she would rather be on the veldt i was wretched she said i felt my running ability was being exploited by people who did not share my belief in the sport and she's so unhappy the olympics is not her goal the olympics is the end after which she can go home so a little bit like a prisoner in a cell she's ticking off the days to the end of olympics because then she can go back to South Africa.
10:39Paul Hayward:Yeah, yeah, you will.
10:41Mark Pougatch:I mean, this whole thing is insane.
10:42Paul Hayward:Yeah, absolutely. Her father sold the story for£100 ,000, as you say. She becomes the kind of almost the property of the male. She's the male's great Olympic project, if you like. You know, the newspaper culture of that time was to go big, was to find stories and then go big on them. And they certainly succeeded to that extent. But for Zola Budd herself, she's captive, as you said. She's been sold to the UK by her father in effect and now she's in a in a place and a culture and a situation that would be completely alien to her because the the scrutiny that went with that I mean we'll get on to the kind of anti-apartheid protests and you know and all that stuff every every time she ran
11:23Mark Pougatch:every time Crystal Palace, Starford where she's qualified every time she'd run anti-apartheid protests yeah do you and you know I'm being interviewed do you condemn apartheid what do you say about apartheid?
11:34Paul Hayward:Yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, some of it was, you know, horrendous. I mean, there was a, you know, Channel 4 covered an athletics meeting in Edinburgh, and they pulled it because there was a banner in the stands calling Zola Bud a racist bitch. You know, I mean, how did they come up with that? You know, this kid had been sold to the UK sport, sold to the British Olympic team, and they're blaming her for it.
11:59Mark Pougatch:And you can understand her quandary, because she said they wanted me to condemn apartheid. So if I had condemned apartheid, what's going to be my reaction back in Bloemfontein? You and I have been to Bloemfontein. Bloemfontein is where England lost to Germany. Frank Lampard's ghost goal. It's extremely Afrikaans. I won't tell the story on air. I've just told off it. I'll tell you if I ever bumped you a pub. Made my eyes water. It's as right wing as you can get, isn't it, Bloemfontein? So she said, if I condemn apartheid, what's going to be my reaction when I go back to South Africa? But because I'm not here, I'm being condemned by the anti-apartheid activists because I won't condemn apartheid.
12:33Mark Pougatch:I can't win.
12:34Paul Hayward:Meanwhile, she is this prodigy on the track, this phenomenal young long-distance runner. The first competitive race she ran in Britain, I think it was on a cinder track in Dartford, Central Park and Dartford in the 3 ,000 metres. And that was shown live on Grandstand, BBC's Grandstand. So she was kind of paraded around the British track and field circuit it as a darling of grandstander darling of the mail a kind of weird and wonderful news story a story of parental control and parental manipulation and weirdness frankly but at the time i remember it was presented as oh isn't this a lovely story yeah it was it definitely i was 16 and i was definitely come and cheer on the child with no shoes yeah borderline kind of
13:21Mark Pougatch:freak show it definitely was i was like oh great one up she's one of ours yeah she is now maybe Maybe we were just very naive teenagers, Paul. He was definitely presented that way. Greg Rosetsky times a thousand. Yeah, also, she didn't speak a lot of English because Bromfontein is very Afrikaans. She didn't speak a lot of English. Chris Brasher, who's a big man in athletics, he was part of the Four Minute Mile setting it up, and he was a reporter, said, when you interviewed her, you could barely hear her voice, but she spoke on the track in a way that was purposeful, remorseful, and toweringly talented.
13:54Mark Pougatch:No doubting her talent here. it's just the manner in which he's being set up to qualify for the Olympics so that's Zolabar ready to go to LA despite everything that's happening to her off the track when we come back after the break the story of Mary Dekker on the way to the Olympics
14:27Mark Pougatch:so mary decker's a bit older born in 1958 and the family moved to california when she's young and she loses herself in running because her parents marriage is deteriorating neither father comes out of this at all well neither father comes out of this well she's extremely talented she's got a bit of a temper she runs so much it's actually hard to restrain her as a result she does get a lot of injuries because she's running so much actually they think early on that she's got shin spin she has she's got very very tight calves and they it's quite a graphic explanation of an operation she has early on where they slit down her calves and they said it's like sausage meat bursting out of her calf because it's so tight but once she does that you know she can certainly run more freely her parents divorce when she's 15 and her father refuses to pay child support for mary decker he denies paternity of her He is not responsible for her.
15:23Mark Pougatch:How's that going to make you feel as a teenager?
15:25Paul Hayward:Yeah, not great. I don't want to generalise too much about runners and running, but I guess running is one of the places, as you said, that people do find solace and escape from those kind of experiences. She was extremely dedicated, and she was going to be the champion of the ages. She was going to be the American star.
15:48Mark Pougatch:So she misses the 1976 Olympics, she could have qualified for because she's injured she has a lot of injuries and in fact if you think about it physical pain the problem with her calves and emotional trauma her father has denied her that equals burnout i mean that's not a big leap for anybody to take so basically between 75 and 77 she's out of it so she misses the 76 olympics in montreal she moves to colorado with a boyfriend to get out of california with everything that's going on at home one of her coaches rich castro said she was the most competitive athlete I have ever coached. For sheer talent, there has never been anyone better.
16:26Mark Pougatch:Inevitably, she's very demanding. So she burns through coaches. One of them is called Bill Bowerman, who is part of the brains behind Nike because she goes to Oregon. I think a lot of people might know that Nike is based in Oregon. Bill Bowerman was one of the people who came up with the first shoe. So she picks up with a coach called Dick Brown, who says running defined Mary. She needed that success because there were a lot of things in life that had produced insecurity. So she's going really well and she's thinking, well, I've missed out on 76, but 1980, I'm 22, I'll go to Moscow. Then the peanut seller comes in, doesn't he?
17:00Mark Pougatch:Jimmy Carter, the president, goes, any American athlete who thinks about going to Moscow because of the invasion, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I will revoke your passport.
17:10Paul Hayward:Which must have been really tough to take. she's a very distinctive figure in the sense that she's she's kind of destined for success you know she's got a target in front of her face and she and you feel sure that she's going to get
Read the full transcript
17:22Mark Pougatch:there probably in la that's the expectation there is one big obstacle still to overcome and we talked about this in all the athletics episodes we've done with johnson and lewis and co and and that is east european drugs so she doesn't go to moscow tatyana kazaninka of the ussr wins gold in the 1500 a few weeks later at the velk class which is one of the great athletics meets of europe and the mary decker walks into the changing rooms where cousin ninka is getting changed and mary decker says they don't look like women to me bulky muscles and buttocks chemically i'm not sure that they're women and we've talked about this in every episode that we've done the state-sponsored uh eastern block i'm tended to be well no actually what it was swimmers and it was swimmers and It was state-sponsored.
18:08Paul Hayward:Yeah, and yet, again, without wanting to go off at a tangent, the American record in track and field, highly dubious.
18:16Mark Pougatch:In 1982, Mary Decker has her Anis Mirabilis. She breaks the records for the 5 ,000 metres, for the 10 ,000 metres. She runs in the 1983 inaugural World Championships. She wins the 3 ,000 metres against Kazaninka and the 1 ,500. The Decker double, I suppose, the double Decker. The Decker double. She is brilliant. And as one writer wrote, little Mary, fatherless Mary, damaged Mary, jilted Mary, divorced Mary, been divorced already, injured Mary and invisible Mary were gone. She is the double world champion going to the Olympic Games. And we are now on this crash course of Mary Decker and Zola Budd.
18:56Mark Pougatch:They'd never had a 3000 metres before. And although everybody's going, it's Decker or Budd, it's Budd or Decker. There is a Romanian called Mariciccia Puiccia, who's a major contender. Now, I wouldn't blame some of you at home going, hang on a second, but the Romanians are the Soviet bloc and they boycotted it. They did, everybody except Romania. And being an Eastern European, everybody doubted that she was clean. If you read the testimony of all the other runners in the race, they're going, we're absolutely certain she was on drugs. Never been proved, never been proved, but they were absolutely certain of it.
19:30Paul Hayward:So you've got a Romanian suspect and he wouldn't be there if the Romanians had followed the Soviet line. You've got the American quotes, cliche, golden girl who's arriving at a moment of destiny.
19:44Mark Pougatch:And in California where she comes from. In California, absolutely.
19:47Paul Hayward:In the home Olympics, which is supposed to put two fingers up to the Soviet Olympics of four years previously. and then you've got Zola Budd who's basically been kidnapped at 17 years old and turned into a British superstar who's reviled by half the country it's got plenty of preview material really going into that final
20:05Mark Pougatch:So she's still running barefoot Zola Budd because that's how she ran through the veld with her sister Jenny but as they come out it is called the Coliseum it's where they'll have the next Olympics there as well I think it'll be the first stadium to have three Olympics, interesting, the crowd are chanting Mary, Mary, Mary, you know she's back in southern california this is it the 3 000 meters at the la olympic games
20:45Mark Pougatch:so the tactics bud's got a bit of a hamstring strain from training from overdoing it a little bit and she's fed up she just actually wants she just actually wants it over and done with which is a real shame because you know the olympic finals should be the absolute ultimate it's like i want to get it over and done with she tended to run from the front they know that preacher has a kick and they need to neutralize that mary decker likes to lead so there's all the there's all the
21:08Paul Hayward:various tactics that goes into it as well the coenova episode taught us that the amount of stress and expectation that's telescoped into a olympic final would be insufferable to most of us The tactics, the preparation, the expectation, the fear, the dread, the ambition, all that stuff is distilled into a single race. And so Bud and Decker are fighting each other. They're also fighting the Romanian that we mentioned earlier on, Puigcia. But contrary to myth, I think it's not one collision really that creates the story. There are two minor ones before that. So, you know, they're sort of bumping and messing with each other unintentionally or not before the big story, before the big accident.
21:54Paul Hayward:1 ,700 meters in, Decker makes contact with Bud's leg. No serious consequences. Five strides later, I think, Bud's foot catches Decker's thigh. So it's already getting a bit messy. This is the point where Bud's ankle gets spiked by Mary Decker. She ends up with blood on her ankle.
22:13Mark Pougatch:It's like a couple of snake bites. snake puncher marks in her Achilles. Absolutely.
22:17Paul Hayward:And she did incredibly well to keep going after that. But all that's just a precursor to the big one, which I guess you will now describe for us.
22:24Mark Pougatch:There's another runner called Lynn Kanuka-Williams who's in the pack behind and she's looking ahead and going, they're too close together. They're four runners. I spoke to a couple of runners about this and we're going to hear from one of them. Kath Merrie, who won a bronze in the Sydney Olympics of 2 ,400 metres, said, don't forget this was the first ever 3 ,000 metres.
22:43Paul Hayward:Yeah.
22:43Mark Pougatch:Final for women. at an Olympics. So there's a little bit of newness about this all. But Lynn Kanuka-Williams says it's just too tight. Four of them are running too tightly together. And after one little bump and bore, a few strides later, Decker falls and in doing so, rips Zola Budd's number off the back of her singlet, falls into the inside of the track and starts wailing and screaming. And then suddenly it all goes off. But in terms of who was at fault or if anybody was at fault, you watch that again and again and again. I was watching you and I'm going, I'm failing to see how Zola Budd is at fault here.
23:24Mark Pougatch:I really am because Zola Budd is in front and Mary Decker is behind her. So if you imagine Budd's running and Decker is inside, just behind her, but just inside her. So right up against the edge of the track. But don't take it from us. Take it from a man who won a 1500 metre silver at those LA games.
23:43Mary Decker:right absolutely no way that zola budd was to blame for the fall the athlete who's running behind has to find the right place to run you're the person in the lead as long as they're not weaving in and out which zola wasn't then you're there in the lead so that you can't trip somebody from in front as it were and actually mary clipped a couple of seconds before the clip that mary went down with so she almost had a warning you know a couple of seconds before so she should have just backed off a bit, giving Zola a bit more room. I mean, the four of them were running very, very close together. Zola wasn't going very quick at the front.
24:17Mary Decker:So when it's bunched like that, the athlete in the pack, you've just got to watch where you're putting your feet. And so, no, not Zola's fault, Mary's fault entirely. And sadly for Zola, it obviously ruined her race as well because I think she ended up finishing about seventh, something like that.
24:33Mark Pougatch:So if Steve Cram says Zola Bard's not at fault, that'll do for you and me.
24:37Paul Hayward:Oh, yeah. I think that.
24:39Mark Pougatch:He explained that, Steve, didn't he? Zola Budd's in front it's not her responsibility it's the responsibility of Mary Decker behind to watch where she's putting her feet
24:48Paul Hayward:yeah so although as Steve Cram has just explained it's really Mary Decker's fault she's not going to see it that way and nor the crowd so the crowd start booing
24:58Mark Pougatch:and this poor old Zola Zola Budd knows they're booing at her and Zola Budd's thinking she's still running Olympic fun get me out of here I don't want to be here She actually says, I don't want to win a medal because if I win a medal, I've got to stand on the podium and they'll boo me even more.
25:16Paul Hayward:Do you know what, Mark? I think that's actually the most poignant part of the story, that she was so disconcerted by the booing, so troubled by it, so fearful of the consequences of actually winning, that she was left not wanting to win a race for an incident that wasn't really her fault.
25:30Mark Pougatch:It's terrible, isn't it? It's awful. So Preacher has to vault Mary Decker as Mary Decker goes down. And Preacher the Romanian, and I don't know whether I believe this anyway, she said it. I thought about stopping to help her.
25:41Paul Hayward:Oh, yeah.
25:41Mark Pougatch:Really? Really? But if I did, I would be disqualified and the communists would not be happy with me. That feels like that's written by the communists. Yeah, yeah.
25:50Paul Hayward:I would have been a great sport, but I decided not to be.
25:54Mark Pougatch:So they're booing Zola Bud, Puecher wins, Bud finishes down the field, and the ABC athletics analyst is a man called, I mean, only Americans, Marty Licori. and Marty LeCoury immediately blames Zola Budd. Immediately blames Budd for her inexperience. He is the man who goes, she's too inexperienced. She wasn't giving Mary enough room. Hang on, Budd's in front. What do you mean she's not giving Mary enough room? Budd's in front. In the tunnel, Budd apologises to Decker, who says, don't bother me, go away, go away. Another runner in the race, Cornelia Berkey, who's Swiss goes, says to Decker, it wasn't Zola's fault, it was your own.
26:32Mark Pougatch:Decker fires back. It was her fault. You know it was. And here is Decker underlining that in the press conference afterwards.
26:40Zola Budd:I don't think there's any question that she was in the wrong and give it be that it's inexperience on her part. But she was not in front. You have to be at least a full stride ahead before you cut in on someone.
26:56Mark Pougatch:So Mary Decker's piled in on Zola Budd. That evening, she is public enemy number one Zola Budd. She must think, what is all this? I've been spirited away from my home, landed in Guildford, made to run in the Olympics. Now I'm being blamed for something that's not my fault and everyone's booing me. Thanks.
27:13Paul Hayward:Yeah, we should say it's not all bad news for Decker on the deck. As she's howling about injustice with an injured hip, she's carried off by a man who later becomes her husband, the discus thrower, Richard Slaney, hence the Decker Slaney thing. So you could say that her married life started with a sort of white knight taking her off the track. But obviously that's not the way she sees it. She's embittered. She knows that the home crowd is on her side. She knows that a distorted narrative is taking place where she's the hero and Zola Budd is the villain. So I suppose it's inevitable that she's going to ride that.
27:52Paul Hayward:Even if deep in her brain she realizes that it wasn't Zola Budd. She's probably going to take that opportunity. And after all the training and the hard work and the heartache and the, you know, the desperate kind of quest to get there, to be knocked out in that way through an error of judgment. Would it be human nature to blame the other guy? Probably.
28:13Mark Pougatch:Probably. But it doesn't last very long. No. Because old Marty LeCourie, our friend, back in his hotel room, watches the tape again and go. And actually, fair do some rings the ABC control and goes, I think I've got this wrong. so it's only that night that mary deck has painted zola bud as public enemy number one yeah because quite quickly it changes when marty la coury and others watch it and go yeah hang on a second zola bud's in front yeah steve cram said you can't trip somebody up from in front and very quickly the press cry baby mary bitterness and acromene in a tv interview as someone wrote she whined she cried she blamed everybody but herself for her olympic disaster I don't feel sympathy for Decker anymore.
28:54Mark Pougatch:And the Orange County Register, Orange County is where Mary Decker came from. That's where she grew up. Blames Decker for trying to squeeze through a hole that wasn't there. So actually, very quickly, everyone goes, oh, hang on a second. It wasn't Zola Budd's fault. And actually, Mary Decker pays a very big price. I think you've said it very well there. maybe we would all react like that not my fault not my fault immediately but by not immediately saying oh that was my fault or even an accident she actually brings the opprobrium onto her own
29:24Paul Hayward:head yeah it she backs the wrong horse really but you can understand why she did in the moment and actually does this mention go back to marty le curie for a minute because you don't have to be a journalist or a broadcaster to know that if you ring your office and say i've got the biggest story at the Olympic Games wrong, that takes some doing. It does, yeah, it does. You probably don't expect to work much after that, frankly.
29:47Mark Pougatch:I've got that wrong. Zola Budd goes home to Bloemfontein and the first thing she does when she walks into her bedroom, tears down the poster of Mary Decker. I mean, that's so filmic, it's ridiculous. And in a way, that's where the story ends. They do run against each other in 1985 at Crystal Palace and at the Weltklasse. Deca Slaney, as she's called now, wins them both easily.
30:11Paul Hayward:Yeah.
30:11Mark Pougatch:She's still refusing to apologise, by the way. The USA Today, the newspaper called her whiner of the year. Esquire magazine called her the year's sorest loser. But she's brilliant in 1985 again. She's a bit like the All Blacks rugby team where for years, brilliant for three years, just couldn't win the World Cup yet. That's what's so difficult about an Olympics, what's so amazing about winning an Olympic title, and for Seb Coe to win two of them, because you've got to get your timing right. And she does run in Seoul in four years later, Mary Decker. And she's in great form running up to Seoul.
30:42Mark Pougatch:But then she gets a virus in August just before the Olympics, which is in September. And it doesn't happen for her in either the 3000 or the 1500. And Lovola Budd is banned from 1988 because she goes to a friend's race in South Africa. She doesn't run. She just turns up and she says she takes a bike, just sits there and watches everybody. and that's a reason to ban her because she has participated in a sporting event in South Africa and the IAAF say to the British Olympic Association if you don't ban her we'll ban the whole, the lot of you there's no track on that but she is banned so the ultimate porn is banned for watching a race
31:21Paul Hayward:yeah, take it out, take it out on the child the whole crime of apartheid visited upon one what I'd like to know is whether the male got their£100 ,000 back when she didn't actually win in LA I mean she carries on running for Britain
31:34Mark Pougatch:yeah but for a few years
31:35Paul Hayward:I think that's an important post script she runs in 86 yeah that's a very important post script because although she never beats Mary Deca Slaney she carries on and she achieves quite a lot
31:45Mark Pougatch:and then when South Africa are readmitted of course it's a chance for her to run the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 for South Africa which would have been a fabulous story aged 26 a fabulous story but she has been bitten by a tick in training, running in South Africa, you can imagine it, and it gets into her bloodstream and just saps her. She's really fatigued. And she runs poorly in 1992 as a result of tick fever, tick bite fever, and she's never the same athlete again. She's never the same athlete again. So in terms of their actual rivalry, they run against each other in 1985, as I said, and Deca Slaney wins them both.
32:23Mark Pougatch:But it never happens for Deca Slaney at all at the Olympics. She keeps trying. As I said, doesn't happen for an 88 doesn't qualify 92 does qualify 96 but she's not going to win any medals by then and by which stage zola budd is retired but there is still a postscript to all this isn't there with
32:39Paul Hayward:decker slaney there is and um we should credit here jason henderson's book um collision course the olympic tragedy of mary decker and zola budd and mary decker uh fails a drug test for testosterone at the 1996 US Olympic trials. She suspended, but USA Track and Field, who at that time had a checkered record, cleared her after evidence showed that her marginally positive test might have been caused by her taking birth control pills and drinking alcohol the night before the test. So again, we come back to this issue of doping in this period, and it's an important postscript though to say that mary decker did fail a drugs test for testosterone in 1996 12 years
33:28Mark Pougatch:after the uh after the la games if you say the name zola bud to people that's what they say straight away oh the fall yeah don't they the fall with mary decker yeah straight away in a situation like that they touch for a moment on a track in an olympic final and their lives are
33:42Paul Hayward:changed forever they touch for a moment and they're kind of chained together in history for the rest of their lives.
33:47Mark Pougatch:Well, thank you very much for suggesting that topic. That was great for us to revisit that. And if you've enjoyed today's show, please make sure you rate, follow and subscribe. And that way you'll never miss an episode. You can listen to all our past shows on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. And keep those suggestions coming just like Bud and Decker. You can email us howitallplayedout at global.com or find us on socials on at Played Out Pod. And we'll speak to you next time.
34:23Mark Pougatch:How it all played out is presented by me, Mark Pugach, and Paul Hayward. It's a global original production in association with Apex Content Ventures.
34:34Paul Hayward:This has been a Global Player original production.
From the publisher
It's one of the most iconic photos in Olympic history: Mary Decker falling flat on her face as Zola Budd runs past her bare foot. Decker, America’s golden girl and the World Champion on home turf, against Budd, from apartheid-ridden South Africa, who acquired a British passport in double quick time to line up, against her own will.
Mark Pougatch and Paul Hayward bring you the story behind the photo from the LA Games in 1984. How did two such different characters end up being the main protagonists in one of the Olympic’s most infamous moments? How did politics, the Daily Mail and fearsome fathers play their part? And what were the long term effects on both runners?
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