Zola Budd, who ran the half-marathon in Asheville in September and ran a trail race up in Boone recently, has been quietly been training hard in Western North Carolina under the eye of a ZAP Fitness trainer. Budd will run in the New York City Marathon on Sunday.
CONWAY — The last time you saw Zola Budd was probably more than two decades ago. All eyes were focused on her then. You might have watched on your TV.
It was 1984 at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles when millions watched her collide with American runner Mary Decker in the 3,000-meter final.
That’s what everyone remembers. That single moment. Decker tumbling to the ground, falling out of contention. Controversy. Boos.
Budd wearily says being remembered for that moment is “unfair.”
You might remember how before the games Budd received British citizenship – her grandfather was British – to participate after her native South Africa had been banned because of apartheid. It created a political firestorm across the free world.
You might remember how Budd, an 18-year-old girl from a South African farm, became an unwitting symbol of one of the great injustices of the last century. Budd says that because of South Africa’s state-controlled media, she was unaware of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, of the extent of the country’s racial inequality.
She just wanted to run.
You might remember 90,000 booing at the Los Angeles Coliseum after the bump with Decker. You didn’t know, not many knew, until a recent interview with The New York Times that she let up in the 3,000 final after the bump with Decker. She was terrified of being met on the medal podium with a downpour of boos.
The moment cast an opaque shadow upon all her accomplishments. She claimed the 5,000-meter world record a year later, clocking 14:48.07. Who recalls that? Who recalls that in 1986 she set British Commonwealth records for the 1,500-meter and 3,000-meter events. Who recalls that she competed for her homeland in 1992 at the Barcelona Games?
Then she was gone.
You probably had forgotten about her.
Sure, reporters would call every four years, asking about the brush with Decker. But she was through with the big stage. She started a family. She has three kids now. She gave up serious running after her twins were born in 1996. They lived on their family farm in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Life was quiet. That was until Oct. 4 when during halftime of the Coastal Carolina-Liberty football game Budd was introduced as a new volunteer coach of the Coastal Carolina cross country program. A few wows rippled through Brooks Stadium.
What would this be comparable to? A former superstar gone missing returns as an assistant coach at a mid-major program. Maybe Mark McGwire as CCU’s new hitting coach?
“I got a call, it was kind of surreal, ‘Coach, this is Zola Budd from South Africa,'” Coastal Carolina coach Alan Connie said. “She was interested in finding some people to run with.
“The first thing I said is ‘are you the Zola Budd?'”
She is really the Zola Pieterse, but she is still better known by her maiden name Budd. Budd and her family moved to the Carolina Forest area this summer with a two-year visa. They had come to Myrtle Beach for its “low key” environment and so her husband could golf.
But that wasn’t all. She wanted to run. To run in peace.
She has been training for Sunday’s New York City Marathon. She said she started running seriously again last year. She was looking for a group to run with and she found the Chanticleers.
But she doesn’t want to become the oldest so-and-so to compete, or the fastest 40-something. No, she wants to run like when she was a child. Like when she was chasing Ostriches around her family farm barefoot. Well, that is a myth she says, the flightless birds were chasing her.
Budd is running to find peace again. The same way a 14-year-old Budd began to run to release “anger” after her sister Jenny’s death from cancer.
“I just want to run and really enjoy it and experience it,” Budd said. “I have had a career of a lot of pressure, of a lot of goal setting. Now I want to run and see what happens.”
As soon as news of Budd’s presence at Coastal made the rounds in the running world, reporters came calling. But Budd is hoping Coastal will offer relative tranquility. She traveled with the team to the Blue Ridge Mountain Open in Boone, N.C., last month, surprising some participants with her presence.
