Did Zola Budd trip Mary Decker Slaney?

TEAM ZOLA!

Mary Decker Slaney was the original crybaby KAREN.

No.

Setting aside how young Budd was at the time and how little international racing experience she had, Slaney had years of racing experience at that level. She was boxed in and tried to make a move. If anything, Slaney should have known better, but tried to "intimidate" Budd into making way so she could take the lead.

It failed, and so did she.

Budd had no obligation to make room for Slaney to pass her. Slaney's own poor strategy that allowed her to be boxed in with nowhere to go and her subsequent attempt to force a way through is what cause Slaney to trip Budd, then in turn, fall herself.

WHYYYYYYY????!!!!

Are we really reliving 1984?

[quote] Are we really reliving 1984?

I'll never let it go!!!!

I always felt sorry for Zola Budd. She had a tenuous claim to British citizenship , and the boycott meant that her prodigious talent would never thrive if she represented South Africa. The UK right wing press got behind her, and her UK citizenship was processed miraculously quickly. She was very young, and seemed to be under enormous pressure going in to the Olympics. I think it was lack of competitive experience and panic which caused the collision. An£ Mary Decker was a total drama queen.

for whatever reason, slaney ALWAYS ALWAYS ran leading, from start to finish, and yet here in the most importance race of her life, the clear favorite, she decided not to?...

turns out she never did lose to either budd or puica who won the gold in that race, before or after the 84 olympics...

Runners: any thoughts on whether Zola being barefoot was a factor? I've always wondered if having a barefoot runner in the mix is distracting to others, or if perhaps Zola panicked for fear of Mary hurting her when she tried to move in.

I had no idea she ran barefoot, R9.

That can totally kill your ankles. I've done it before and it hurts later on. I know a guy who can barely walk now because he used to jog barefoot.

Interestingly, I saw a picture of Garrett Hedlund and Charlie Hunnam jogging barefoot on pavement, and all I could think of is, "How dumb!"

I feel for Mary because that was just soul-crushing no matter who was at fault, but damn she was a manipulative bitch:

[quote]I HAVE WANTED TO WRITE YOU FOR A LONG TIME,” Decker wrote to Budd in December 1984. “…I simply want to apologize to you for hurting your feelings at the Olympics…It was a very hard moment for me emotionally and I reacted in an emotional manner. The next time we meet I would like to shake your hand and let everything that has happened be put behind us. Who knows? Sometimes even the fiercest competitors become friends.”

[quote]Publicly, though, Decker was not quite so soft. “I don’t feel that I have any reason to apologize,” Decker told a reporter in January 1985. “I was wronged, like anyone else in that situation.”

Wow, Mary Decker sounds like a real bitch.

I noticed she dropped the Slaney, so her husband probably divorced her because he couldn't take her whining.

Who cares? *I* was THE STAR of that Olympics!

[quote] Who cares? *I* was THE STAR of that Olympics!

[quote] —Mary Lou

Pipe down, hatchet face!

This is why I love the Olympics!

What a clumsy twat. Trix are for kids.

Tonya, the way you swing a bat, you should have been a baseball player!

[quote] Runners: any thoughts on whether Zola being barefoot was a factor? I've always wondered if having a barefoot runner in the mix is distracting to others, or if perhaps Zola panicked for fear of Mary hurting her when she tried to move in.

I'm not a runner, but Zola going barefoot should not have mattered. If anything, a barefoot runner is more open to getting injured from a runner with shoes.

From the video at OP, it didn't look like Zola panicked. It seemed more like she didn't really know what was going on behind and to the left of her.

Decker does seem like a huge fucking crybaby, in retrospect. She was American, attractive (in the Sheryl Crowe way), and bullied (yes, bullied) Zola into being some type of villain.

The Nancy Kerrigan reaction (WHYYYY???) was very similar. Good comparison.

R12 She's now known as Mary Deck-her

It really came down to the fact that neither of them knew how to run in a pack, this is in part because for most of their careers they competed domestically in (South Africa and the U.S. respectively) where they were head and shoulders above the fields so both were excellent front-runners. Slaney was constantly injured throughout her career so her experience against elite level Soviet and Eastern European women was relatively limited (only the previous years World Championships where she won both 1,500 and 3,000 as front runner did she face top level Eastern European competition). Budd was only 17 and had mainly only run in SA events and was way ahead of the field. It was basically a problem of two front runners cancelling each other out and thus forcing each other to stay with the pack. Budd stayed with Decker and vice-versa and the field was right behind them and neither of them knew what to do in the circumstances.

Did Zola Budd end up winning?

Runners have ugly bodies.

Ugh I can’t believe you’re comparing Nancy Kerrigan to Mary Decker. Their reactions were similar but Kerrigan had every right to react the way she did. Here she was, moseying along to the Olympics and some asshole whacks her in the knee a month before the games. I think if she’d been an ordinary person walking down the street, people would think she was justified in her reaction.

R21... no, budd didn't win, in fact, didn't even medal..marica puica won the gold, and subsequently before and after the olympics when she raced decker, decker won every time... so this had to hurt decker even more to not have won the gold..

Mary Decker Slaney was such an evil cunt that no one felt sorry for her. Everyone was just happy she went down, however it happened.

Listen to this interview, after the race.

"When I think about it now, I should have pushed her, but if I had pushed her, tomorrow the headline would have read 'Decker shoved Zola.'"

Mary Decker Slaney really is quite a nasty woman.

Blech.

That’s a really interesting story, R11 — had no idea that Zola Budd’s life was so drama-filled, nor that Mary Decker Slaney was such a cunt.

Mary appeared on a talk show the next morning, with her chiropractor. Rofl.

I'm surprised it wasn't her attorney.

I remember watching this live on TV. And the American announcers castigating Zola Budd. They showed the full replays only once, then they showed the one angle that looks like Budd tripped Decker. Budd was in the #1 lane, ahead of Decker. Decker tried to overtake Budd on the inside, but there was no room without stepping off the track.

I remember feeling bad for Budd. And furious at ABC's commentators for their saccharine sweet kissing of Decker's ass.

I loathed Mary Decker at the time. Absolutely couldn’t stand her. As an American I found her pretty a typical representative of a certain type of shitty people we have here. Bet she’s a Trumper now.

Boy, she really rocked that mullet on top of her head.

R6 if Tonya was in that race, she would have thrown shards of glass on the track

Tonya Harding is a tough bitch from a trailer park.

Mary Decker is a lady and a champion.

[quote]Mary Decker

CUNT

R33 is there a feature film about Mary Deck-her?

Is Zola a lesbian?

She looks like she might be.

I remember watching this live at my grandparents’ house. I was an Anglophile & was rooting for Budd, even though I thought at the time she had tripped Mary (based on the replay of the camera angle). I couldn’t stand Mary at the time, ugh, what an entitled brat.

The comparisons to Nancy Kerrigan are way off base, she was a crime victim, & Tonya’s trash upbringing is no excuse. The minute the attack happened, I told my sister that Tonya did it. I was a huge skating fan then, back in the glory days.

Years later Mary tested positive for PED's, I think she appealed saying it was her 'Aunt Flo' or her birth control pills which threw off the test, but I beleive she retired after that.