Budd returns to try and lay ghosts to rest
WITHIN the grounds of Stirling Castle, it is fitting that Zola Budd reflects personally on the battles she has faced — and won — during her eventful career.
The 50-year-old is in the city to promote the inaugural Stirling Marathon. The events of the past here do not go unnoticed.
‘At Stirling, you are running through history,’ she says. Indeed, running through history has become a permanent theme of this athlete’s extraordinary life.
One thing is for sure, when she takes to the course tomorrow, it will be nowhere near the tension, drama and controversial surroundings she found herself in on her last competitive race in Scotland.
July 23, 1985. The venue was Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh. The atmosphere? Bitter. The teenage South African long-distance runner was met by an onslaught of protests.
The previous year, her application for British citizenship had been fast-tracked, allowing her to run in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, thereby sidestepping sport sanctions against the apartheid state.
To many, this was outrageous. Her clash with American Mary Decker at the Games — where the bare-footed 18-year-old, in an attempt to pass, caused her rival to trip — remains one of the most controversial moments in Olympic history.
The controversy did not leave her. By the time she turned up to race at the Dairy Crest Edinburgh Games, Budd was met by chaotic scenes. The city’s left-wing district council unfurled a banner. ‘Edinburgh — Against Apartheid,’ it read. Budd was confronted by protesters who gained entry to the track. The event, being transmitted live on television, was cut.
‘I don’t have fond memories,’ says Budd, who now lives and coaches in South Carolina. ‘The last time I came to Scotland, there were a few demonstrators around the track. But the Scottish people have always been very supportive of me.
‘By the time you got to the race, you were so exhausted trying to fight off all the politics and get to the race. I don’t think a lot of people realise how tough it was.
‘Demonstrators came on the track in Scotland. It’s scary stuff. Today, there would be security on the track but back then there were not many security officers. You were exposed.
‘There were two guys and one clung on to the inside rail of the track and lay flat. We had to go around him in a mile. I ran a bit more than a mile!’
She has ran enough in her career to earn world cross-country titles and a world record for 5,000metres.
For Budd, however, there will always be questions. Most notably: What if?
‘If I had been able to be a normal athlete and not the political scapegoat that I was made out to be, yes — it would have been so much easier,’ she admits. ‘To be seen as a runner and not, I don’t know, an easy target.
‘It was unfair because, even now, I still see myself as a runner. I still see running — and sport — as being that sacred area where all people can come together. To blame me for everything that was wrong in South Africa was really unfair.’
Budd’s visit to Stirling sees her promote tomorrow’s event with Liz McColgan-Nuttall.
The former world 10,000m champion, now 52, admits the ‘awful’ treatment of Budd still irks her to this day.
The experience suffered by Budd was certainly traumatic, but McColgan-Nuttall believes it was made worse because of her then tender age.
‘I had to run against her,’ says the Scot. ‘There was no point in me saying: “Oh well, she’s not here”. I had to get on with it. If we weren’t going to beat her, we wouldn’t beat anyone in the world.
‘What annoyed me was the people around her. They used to shuffle her around. What makes it so special?
‘The circus surrounding it annoyed people rather than just letting her get on with it. No one bothered as athletes.
‘She was just another athlete that everybody dealt with. I thought it was really unfair at the time. I shared a room with her a few times and I remember the circus.
‘Her minders didn’t have a clue what they were doing either. It was child abuse, in a way. She was 17, she didn’t know anybody.
‘All of sudden, she is in a foreign country and people were not happy she was here.
‘It was an awful lot for anybody to deal with, not just an 18-year-old who, by the way, was very quiet and immature because she was sheltered in South Africa.
‘Choices were made, she survived it and is happy and healthy.’
“I was a political scapegoat and it wasn’t easy”