LOSE-UP Zola Budd

LOSE-UP The sensation caused by the Zola Budd incident inflated the London rematch between Decker The Zola Budd story entered jawed male shot-putter have and Budd the following year a new phase in early May succeeded in generating? into a media circus that when she announced that she Secondly, the media have generated a £90,000 appear- was suffering from nervous constantly represented her ance payment for Budd, who exhaustion and was with- as innocent, naive, vulner- finished fourth in the race. drawing from international able and little more than a This is probably at least athletics. The British media child. Her very paleness three times the highest sum seem finally to have under- seems to evoke the frail girl- received by any other British stood where it is that she child of Victorian femininity. athlete, Coe and Ovett in- truly belongs, judging by the Consequently she has cluded, for a single race. Standard headline 'Crushed seemed menaced by faceless She was, let it be said, a fine Zola Dashes Home', and bullies who have rarely been runner, before succumbing numerous other references given a clear identity by the to a series of injuries that in press and television to her British press. kept her out of the limelight returning 'home'. Lurking behind this image for much of 1987. She has Earlier, on May Day, Zola's of feminine frailty is an spent much of the last two face could be seen on news- assumption that being a years in South Africa, de- stands on the cover of both young woman, she is 'natur- spite plaintive requests from Athletics Today and Private ally' uninterested in politics. British athletic authorities Eye. Given the determina- She is constantly presented that she spend more time in tion of so many to pretend to us as a slip of a girl who Britain. They did succeed in that politics and sport are only wants to run. In fact making her sever links with rigidly separate systems, Budd, who has constantly re- her South African coach and Zola Budd's greatest fused to condemn apartheid, she was assigned to Ovett's achievement could be the un- was, before her abrupt move coach Harry Wilson. This re- masking of this pretence. For to Britain, studying political lationship broke up in if anything is clear in the science. September of last year, Wil- whole muddled affair, it is If Zola herself is a victim son complaining that she that all involved: the Interna- from Victorian melodrama, found it very hard to break tional Amateur Athletic Fed- her career has been more the South African connection eration (IAAF), the British like a Dallas sub-plot and her and every time something Amateur Athletic Board biography is truly the stuff went wrong she went back. (BAAB), the South African of soap opera - even her The British government is government, the press and name has a fictional ring to it. committed to uphold the television, agents, coaches, She first emerged as a public Gleneagles agreement under other athletes, the lawyers; figure in 1984 when she ac- which the Commonwealth have been playing politics. quired British citizenship, governments agreed to com- Blame for this 'intrusion' of through having a British bat apartheid by taking ev- politics into sport has gener- grandparent, in ten days. ery practical step to discour- Zola Budd: Run out ally been directed towards This was remarkable dis- age sporting contact with anti-apartheid and the South patch on the part of immigra- South Africa. However the not to risk jeopardising the African Non-Racial Olympic tion, not normally renowned hollowness of this commit- Olympic chances of hun- Committee (SANROC). But for their speed. Zola Budd ment is revealed by the fact dreds of dedicated British the forces opposed to apar- was fortunate enough to be that a number of ex-sports athletes for the sake of those theid have no monopoly over white, and to have powerful ministers were among those who use British nationality political manoeuvre. People allies who would gain mater- who signed MP John Car- as a flag of convenience with choose many ways to engage ially from her ability to qual- lisle's motion calling on the which to evade the cultural in political struggle but ify, through British citizen- BAAB to reject an IAAF re- boycott. Second, it would be generally only those with ship, for world athletics. commendation to suspend wise to be more sceptical of power can manoeuvre by Her subsequent collision her. the interests of sporting keeping silent. with top USA runner Mary 'She has abused her British agents and newspaper ty- Zola Budd, as represented Decker, in the 3000 metres passport by not living here. coons who do not necessarily in the media, has appeared to final in the 1984 Los Angeles It's been a flag of conveni- have the broader interests of be the perfect victim, and Olympics was the most oft- ence. She has taken us for a sport closest to their hearts. she has certainly chosen to repeated moment of the ride.' Those are not my Third, it is worth remember- suffer in silence. Seldom can whole Games. That the colli- words but those of the athle- ing that the majority of coun- an individual have acquired sion knocked Mary Decker tics coach and BBC commen- tries want a properly policed such mythic status and said out of the race, and effective- tator, Ron Pickering. Unfor- cultural boycott - it's Britain so little. What does it mean to ly ended Budd's own chances tunately there are still those who is still dancing, solo, to a call her the perfect victim? was made more poignant by in the British athletics estab- different drummer. Zola Firstly, she is not an adequ- the revelation that Budd lishment who appear reluc- Budd may have been a victim ate or appropriate visual used to have a poster of De- tant to learn this painful les- of this process but she has symbol of the oppressive cker on the wall of her room. son, and desire to continue to already received not incon- South African regime, being Zola Budd's frailty (she ran defend Zola Budd as a matter siderable compensation. As young, slight, frail and intro- in bare feet) was again of principle. Bob Dylan once said, in a verted. By contrast, how evoked and she emerged But there are other princi- different context, 'now ain't much sympathy could an from the affair as more a ples to consider. Perhaps in the time for your tears'. • aggressive, sullen, lantern- victim than a perpetrator. future they should resolve Garry Whannel 56 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1988.

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