Mary Decker’s ill-fated clash with Zola Budd at the Los Angeles Games is one of the most talked about races in athletics history
After winning the men’s marathon title at the Los Angeles Olympics, the great Portuguese runner, Carlos Lopes, remarked: “It was like any other day. I got up, had breakfast, made love to my wife and went for a run.”
If only Mary Decker and Zola Budd’s Olympic experiences were that straightforward. Instead, after a split-second clash of legs, their much-anticipated clash dissolved into a tragedy tinged with so much ill-feeling that debate surrounding the incident rumbles on to this day.
The Los Angeles Games began on July 28 with an opening ceremony that saw a rocket man wearing a jetpack spectacularly flying around the Coliseum, before the Olympic cauldron was lit by Rafer Johnson, the 1960 Olympic decathlon champion and actor. As a sign of the times, the theme music for Chariots of Fire boomed around the stadium as the ceremony drew to a close. For Zola and Mary it was a prophetic choice of audio given the 1981 Oscar-winning movie featured the story of two runners with complicated and differing backgrounds and personalities on their journey to the Olympic Games of 1924.
A city famed for its sun and celebrities was staging its second Olympics following its hosting of the 1932 Games and led skilfully by its chief organiser, Peter Ueberroth, it was set to revolutionise the format of the event with the use of corporate sponsorship, private fundraising and money gained from selling television rights. After the terrorist-damaged Munich, debt-ridden Montreal and boycott-ruined Moscow Games, the Olympic brand was so damaged that only Los Angeles and Tehran showed any interest in holding the 1984 Games. With its grid-locked roads and racial tensions, LA looked an unlikely saviour for the Games as well. Yet it rose to the occasion by producing a dazzling spectacle that nearby Disneyland itself would have been proud of.
Originally, the women’s 3000m was set to consist of heats, semi-finals and a final, but the first round was scrapped due to lack of runners, which was a relief for Mary given a recent Achilles injury and general fragility. This meant the heats would now be held on August 8 with the final two days later on Friday August 10, just as the final weekend of the entire Games was set to unfold.
For Mary, Los Angeles was familiar territory as she had grown up in the area, raced there regularly and lived just up the…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at AW…