August 10: On This Day in World History … briefly
Her mile best of 4:17.57 in 1985, still stands as the British record.
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, crashed out of the 3 000m Olympics final in Los Angeles. The catastrophe occurred when she tripped over the leg of barefoot runner Zola Budd, the South African who was given UK citizenship in order to represent Britain at the Games.
Budd was disqualified instantly by referee Andy Bakjian, whose decision was later overturned by an eight-member jury who, after studying footage of the race, ruled that the 18-year-old Budd was not to blame – the accident occurred because of Decker’s ‘aggressive tactics’.
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.
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