August 10: On This Day in World History … briefly
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
1984: Mary’s Zola eclipse
Mary Decker, America’s golden girl of athletics, who was double-gold medalist at the 1983 world championships in Helsinki, crashes out of the 3 000m Olympics final in Los Angeles.
The catastrophe came when she tripped over the leg of barefoot runner Zola Budd, the South African given UK citizenship in order to represent Britain in the games.
Budd was disqualified instantly by referee Andy Bakjian, whose decision was later overturned by an eight-member jury who, after studying film of the race, ruled that the 18-year old Budd was not to blame – the accident had occurred because of Deckers’s ‘aggressive tactics’.
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