Olympic Collision

With the Summer Olympics just a month away, it is interesting to go back to older Olympics and remember the highlights (and lowlights) of days past. The race between Mary Decker and Zola Budd was eagerly anticipated and the collision between the two made for extreme drama. It certainly changed their lives and from that moment on the two were forever linked. This is a well written look at that moment in time and should be appreciated by all fans of track and field.

One of the most memorable moments in modern Olympics history occurred in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In front of more than 90,000 raucous fans, America’s sweetheart of those games, Mary Decker, was the favorite to win the gold medal in the women’s 3000-meter race. One runner who posed a serious threat to Decker’s chance at gold was nineteen-year-old Zola Budd, a native of South Africa who was representing Great Britain. During the finals, the two runners collided and tumbled to the ground, ending the race for both of them and leaving a famous image of Decker wailing in physical and emotional pain.

The stories of these two runners, who took very different paths to that fateful moment, are captured in this outstanding book by Kyle Keiderling. Through exhaustive research and interviews with many people who worked with or were close to both runners, Keiderling’s writing will take the reader not only to the Los Angeles Coliseum on that fateful day, but also brings the reader behind the scenes during each runner’s training, family life and their careers after the 1984 Olympics. It is written in an easy to read, entertaining style that brings each runner to life.

The public perception of the two runners in the immediate aftermath of their collision was sympathetic to Budd and critical of Decker. I found the book to have a similar pattern, as Decker is portrayed throughout the book as a difficult person, both privately and publicly. Interestingly enough, in the acknowledgement section, Keiderling mentions that Decker refused to acknowledge requests for interviews. This is not to be critical of the author for any criticism that may be written about Decker as any opinions expressed by those involved in her life were supported by actions or facts given. In fact, I found this to be an excellent illustration of why the public perception of Decker was less than favorable.

However, Budd (now Zola Pieterse) was very cooperative and gave the author so much information about her difficulties during the early 1980’s. Budd unwillingly became a symbol of South Africa’s apartheid political system. Her move to Great Britain to run for that nation was orchestrated by a London newspaper and her father, from whom she later became estranged. Through all this, Keiderling paints a more sympathetic picture of Budd, who many times before and after the Olympics simply stated that she just wanted to run.

There are also significant passages about specific training methods for runners, the allegations of the use of performance enhancing drugs by not only athletes from communist countries at the time but also by Decker, and the South African system of apartheid and what protesters and international athletic associations felt about Budd’s citizenship in Great Britain. This information is important toward understanding the complex lives of both women.

The stories of these two female runners and the one moment that will link the two of them together forever make for a great read. Any reader who wants to learn more about these outstanding athletes or the inside world of the Olympics and running will want to add this page-turner to his or her library.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the 1984 Summer Olympics. (Not as much, though, as the 1984 Winter Olympics, which were slightly life-altering. Torvill and Dean? Come on.) I was a kid; I loved the fact that my country did so well, discounting the fact that so many Eastern bloc countries boycotted. I grew up with my dad watching ABC sports and Jim McKay, and it was glorious. I watched everything from gymnastics to javelin.

I'm not sure anymore if I actually remember the Women's 3000 race, or if I'm filling in with what I've seen since (and of course I've watched it in several videos on YouTube), but when I requested this book from Netgalley it was with a vague feeling of "oh right, <I>Zola Budd</i>", and a hint of a growl. Because that's how it ran, live: Marty Liquori commented during ABC's coverage of the race that it was Budd's inexperience in international competition that caused the incident. Sorry – the capital-I-Incident. And track officials disqualified her. And there was Mary Decker, sobbing and thrashing in pain in the infield, then assisted and finally carried off. On YouTube there's a nearly half-hour video of the live coverage, and Liquori puts the fault on Zola Budd several times. If that's all you watch, you'll never know that the disqualification (moot, since she was well out of medals placement anyway) was reversed, and that the next day Liquori – having watched the video a few more times himself– changed his mind, at least partway. And you'll never know about the blood pouring down the back of Budd's leg from Mary Decker's spikes – I'm baffled by the fact that no one seems to have noticed. You'll certainly never know why Zola Budd actually dropped back from the lead to end up in seventh place.

In fact, it's truly weird to read the detailed account of the race in this book and then go watch it, because that's not all you don't hear about. Quite a lot happened in that six-minute race.

I'm just not sure if even all the events of this race, and those leading up to it and succeeding from it, quite justify 368 pages. The writing tends toward repetition, with Reality-Show-Style Recaps cropping up now and then and simple duplication of facts and sometimes phrases more often. (Example: Mary Decker seems to have wanted a bodyguard, and the reader is told so twice.) And there was a lot of material that surprised me – including a detailed etymological exploration of "Bedlam". There were brief (or not-so-brief) biographies of other runners – which makes sense, in context (holy cow, Joan Hansen. I mean really. <spoiler>Her college changed the program she had already earned 129 credits in, and she had to change her tack. Then a coach killed himself. Then two friends died in a car crash. Then a stalker started terrorizing her. Then she had a bike accident, which left her temporarily paralyzed. Then when she had at least partly recovered from that she was in a car accident and was temporarily paralyzed again. Then she developed blood poisoning. <i>Then</i> she got the flu. This was all in something less than a one year period, culminating in a hard fall before Mary Decker's in the 3000 meter race at the Olympics, from which she got up and finished the race I have to add, as so many have before me…</spoiler>). There was also quite a lot of information about drug use in sports in general, track specifically, and Mary Decker's veins more specifically. With all of that, though, there's no information (unless I missed it? I don't think I was skimming) on what happened to the records set by Chinese athletes during a period in which pretty much everyone in the West knew darned well they were using drugs; basically, they set all kinds of records, then urine testing started to be more serious and the most questionable runners disappeared – so, did the records stand? Were they revoked? I should look it up. (I shouldn't have to look it up.)

A quirk of the writer's which irked me a bit, and then a bit more, and then a bit more as the book wore on, was the tendency to provide a chunk of information, followed by a paragraph break and a dramatic statement. Example:

<block quote>"Her stay in England had been nothing short of an ordeal by fire, and she had managed to survive. She had done so, as she explained, through her 'ability to dissociate from my surroundings.'

"She had to be." </block quote>

It happened over and over. And over. It's an effective trick now and then; when it appears every other page, the effect is muted.

There is a great deal of exploration of the training programs for Decker and Budd, as in how many miles they ran in a week and how far in each session and so on; I know next to nothing about track and competitive running, and I would have actually loved more basic stuff. I mean, every unimpaired human being can run at some point in her life – what makes a runner? How do you become faster? Maybe it was in there, but I didn't glean from it what I was looking for. My bad? I don't know. There was a great deal of data in this book, but not what I wanted, or not delivered in such a way that it stuck.

One focus of a lot of the data was the terrifying number of injuries suffered by these two women, especially Decker. Lord, the sheer number of surgeries she had to have just before the age of 40 is queasy-making. "A reporter visiting her for a profile in People magazine said that an ultrasound photo of Mary’s lower extremities would 'discourage most people from even a casual jog.'" - and she was running tens of miles per day.

The book is very much slanted in favor Zola Budd. This could well be based on all the documentary evidence the author was able to turn up – part of which is Budd's own autobiography. It could also be based in part on the fact that while Budd made herself available to speak to the author, Decker refused to – apparently she refused several requests. Given the tone of a few narrative comments about her, one wonders what kind of tone those refusals took. ("If she was America’s sweetheart," Reilly offered, "America needed body armor.") It's a chicken-and-egg thing – did Decker's refusal lead to a bit of a tone in the author's voice, or did an already existing certain tone to which Decker was alerted lead to her refusal? Certainly the description of Decker's behavior after she fell, writhing in the infield, was less than sympathetic, and there wasn't much journalistic detachment. Don't get me wrong, I took a certain malicious pleasure in it, but I'm not sure it was an appropriate tenor. ("Running her mouth"? "The woman who almost always looks like she just had her parking spot stolen"? Really?)

There were also a handful of fourth-wall-breaking narrative comments. Though I did like "Ever see a fast yak?"

The story was all a bit disappointing. One of my takeaways is <i>See? This is why I read fiction</i>. In this tale there are so many coaches out for themselves, putting their athletes second at best; so many athletes behaving badly, and so many family members behaving even worse ... There are so many officials and journalists doing abominable things... It's saddening. I have to say, I did not know the background of Juan Antonio Samaranch, then president of the International Olympic Committee. I only saw him during the opening and (I think) closing ceremonies, and he was … avuncular. I liked him, the little I saw of him. He was enveloped in the golden glow of my teenaged idealism. And he so did not deserve it. He was kind of horrible. It's a dent in a treasured memory. Oh well. So often the way with … life…

One more quote: <spoiler>[In South Africa] the small minivans that are used as taxis, and are a principal mode of transport in the predominantly black townships outside major cities, are called Zola Budds because they are small and fast. Some call the larger conventional buses Mary Deckers, because they are bigger and have more accidents.
</spoiler> Heh.

Flash back to the 1984 summer Olympic games with “Olympic Collision: The Story of Mary Decker and Zola Budd” by Kyle Keiderling. When American Mary Decker fell during the women’s 3,000-meter race, the world was quick to blame Zola Budd, a South African running for the British team. Race officials ultimately found Decker to be at fault, but the event continued to haunt both women.
Keiderling paints a picture of Decker that is far from flattering. He acknowledges that she refused to be interviewed, while Budd was very open to his questions. In the end, though, readers get a good look at the world of distance runners, the politics of sports and how one moment can impact the lives of two women and the sport in general. The book is published by University of Nebraska Press.

As a chld of the 80s who grew up in a running family, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm also the kind of person who sets my DVR to make sure I don't miss the more obscure track and field events at the Olympics though. I say this to clarify that I really enjoy the nitty gritty details of running life. This is a good thing, since Olympic Collision is filled with these sorts of details, which could be off-putting for a casual reader.

It's clear that Mr. Keiderling did extensive research for this book, but it's too bad that he was not able to interview Mary Decker Slaney for her side of the story. As a result, the story is more than a little sympathetic to Zola Budd. That said, I appreciated the inclusion of the cultural and political context to the story, helping readers to better understand all of the undercurrents at the time and to see that something even as simple as a track and field competition doesn't happen in a vacuum.

When Mary Decker went sprawling into the infield after tangling with Zola Budd’s bare ankles many in the UK were strangely delighted. That is not to say that there was widespread animosity towards her, indeed for a titanic sporting showdown to end on such a sour note was an enormous letdown. It just seemed that in this capitalist showpiece Olympics opened by Ronald Reagan, that the USSR had so churlishly yet so significantly declined to attend, for the all American golden girl and ‘face of the games’ to crash out so ignominiously seemed like justice. Unfortunately, in this meticulously researched account she does come across as something of a primadonna. A serial collector of coaches, injuries, near misses and tantrums she really is hard to like which is probably doing her a massive disservice as her athletic achievements speak for themselves. However, she remains dogged by her inability to really forgive Zola Budd who was not at fault in the collision - she was after all running in front of her! Furthermore, the doping allegations are covered in detail, no conclusions are drawn but the question mark remains.

By contrast, Zola Budd had stirred the hatred and loathing of half the world. While she couldn’t possibly be responsible for the actions of the insidious white government in South Africa she found herself almost the focal point for all things anti apartheid. The truth was that the cynical manipulation by her father, coaches, the quite reprehensible Daily Mail and the Thatcher government opened a maelstrom of hatred and bile against her wherever she went or tried to compete in the UK. At one cross country meeting, described graphically in the book, demonstrators physically forced her off the course to make an escape through stinging nettles and brambles. Few could reconcile themselves with the way in which she was fast tracked a British passport simply to compete in the 1984 Olympics. Indeed, recently released cabinet papers indicate a split in the Thatcher government between the Foreign and Home Secretaries over the issue. There was a real likelihood of a massive boycott by African nations of the Commonwealth Games which were to be staged in Edinburgh in 1986. It appeared that the UK government was tacitly offering support to a South African athlete in contravention of the worldwide ban and were ignoring the potential implications for the UK.

Kyle Eiderling skilfully guides the reader through the trials and tribulations of these two remarkable athletes who both suffered enormously, physically and mentally for the simple desire to excel at sport and to achieve Olympic glory. At the end of the day, the pressures they both faced were enormous and almost certainly untenable. There was no question that what Budd experienced was wholly unreasonable at any level. That both, now in their fifties, have survived and found peace and solace of a sort is a tribute to their strength and tenacity. The heroine though is Budd who after all the crises that she has been through in her life seems to have maintained her strength from an innate sense of basic human kindness and an ongoing love of running and the freedom it gives her.

It will be hard for those that didn’t live through the eighties to understand the significance of this story and the most intense and passionate feelings it engendered. However, when we have just watched an Olympics in Rio where wider questions of doping, participation and sports politics were never far from the surface ‘Collision’ reminds us that the very fabric of sport had been embroiled in such matters for decades.

If I have a criticism, the recording and description of almost every race Budd and Decker took part in is a little overwhelming. However, by contrast it also adds to the fascination in that this is also a story about sport and athletics. In fact I was delighted that a race in which I competed against Budd, the very low low key Friday lunchtime 5k in Hyde Park in 1987 even gets a mention.

It would be very easy to dismiss the coming together of Mary Decker and Zola Budd at the Coliseum in Los Angeles as just one of those things which happen in races. That Decker didn’t get up and continue for the gold medal as Mo Farah did a few weeks ago is in many ways beside the point. The story of Mary Decker and Zola Budd is about far more than one athlete over stretching and catching the other’s heal so causing a fall. The back story and what followed is far too important not to be analysed in detail. In today’s sporting world it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong, clean and unclean, male or female or simply cheating and playing by the rules. The acrid scent of corruption hangs over the integrity of many ruling sports bodies and federations. And moreover eye wateringly large sums of money just don’t talk, they actually define the very fabric and nature of the sport such as in the English Premier League. The average fan or observer is crying out for a solution. ‘Collision’ in no way offers any solutions but does act as a guide, almost a textbook about how not to a manage athletes and run a sport.

August 30th
2016

I found this to be an interesting read. The stories behind these two great women were inspiring and tear jerking.
While Decker's struggles were rough and took much diligence to overcome, Budd's challenges in my opinion were much worst and compounded by her age. This book circles around the event at the 1984 Olympic Games where Mary Decker and Zola Budd become entangled, fall and Decker limps off the course. For anyone who has trained for any event only to not finish due to an injury, this would be unpleasant to have this happen at the Olympics must have been down right devastating.
Yet this is not where the book starts and stops, it follows both Decker and Budd as they trained to get to the Olympics and what happened to them after. While Decker's course is filled with disappointing injures and bad luck, something some might call Karma for her attitude, Zola's is much more rocky. I felt for Zola as I read her story, a young woman in her teens yanked from her home, all her friends and transplanted in a place she didn't want to be, surrounded by people who were just using her. To have it all end with her hero being a witch (replace w with b) and I wouldn't have been surprised if she had never run again after 1984. Ms Budd's strength and willpower is amazing. The fact she didn't crack under all the pressure placed on her at such a young age is inspiring.
Mr Keiderling gives us an indepth look into the lives of these wonder athletes and inspiring women. We get to see their trials, tribulations, and joys. The research is very well done, as is the writing. I was pulled into and fascinated by the lives of these women.

This was such a great book! I highly recommend anyone to read this book

I still remember as if it was yesterday the collision between Mary decker and Zola Budd in the 3,000 metres race in the 1984 Olympics. This was one of the iconic and dramatic moments in Olympic history and Kyle Keiderling more than does it justice.

Budd has long been the scapegoat and was accused of costing Decker the gold medal she had fought so hard for and so greatly deserved and the collision 3 laps from home denied her that opportunity.

The book provides a wonderfully well written and researched insight into the lives of these two athletes. What caused the collision, what really happened, how it affected them both and life has treated them since.

Sports writing at its best.

Olympic Collision: The Story of Mary Decker and Zola Budd by Kyle Keiderling the stories of two runners, who took very different paths to that fateful moment. Through exhaustive research and interviews with many people who worked with or were close to both runners. The reader learns about that fateful day, but also about the behind the scenes during each runner’s training, family life and their careers after the 1984 Olympics. It is written in an easy to read, entertaining style that brings each runner to life.

Mary Decker was the favorite for the gold medal in the women's 3,000 meter race. Nineteen-year-old Zola Budd, a native of South Africa who was representing Great Britain was the one runner who posed a threat. During the finals, the two runners collided and tumbled to the ground, ending the race for both of them and leaving a famous image of Decker wailing in physical and emotional pain.

The public perception of the two runners in the immediate aftermath of their collision was sympathetic to Budd and critical of Decker. I found the book to have a similar pattern, as Decker is portrayed throughout the book as a difficult person, both privately and publicly.
Budd was very cooperative and gave the author so much information about her difficulties during the early 1980’s. Budd unwillingly became a symbol of South Africa’s apartheid political system. Her move to Great Britain to run for that nation was orchestrated by a London newspaper and her father, from whom she later became estranged. Through all this, Keiderling paints a more sympathetic picture of Budd, who many times before and after the Olympics simply stated that she just wanted to run.

There are also significant passages about specific training methods for runners, the allegations of the use of performance enhancing drugs, and what protesters and international athletic associations felt about Budd’s citizenship in Great Britain. This information is important toward understanding the complex lives of both women.

The stories of these two female runners and the one moment that will link the two of them together forever make for a great read. Any reader who wants to learn more about these outstanding athletes or the inside world of the Olympics and running will want to add this page-turner to his or her library.

I received this book from University of Nebraska Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.