Some years ago, they got together to talk about it for the BBC, and have since become, and remain, friends. Thirty-six years ago, I was attending my first Olympic Games—the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Games—for On the last Friday of the Games, the women’s 3000-meter final was set to run at sunset. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. I grabbed the 85, and shot the group as they ran past us, aware that something wasn’t right. As a result, Mary Decker did not finish the race. Their feet collided and Decker lost her balance, careening onto the infield grass. She still looks like she could run five miles, though these days she is dedicated to her four dogs.

The American Mary Decker was poised to win the gold; she’d been denied the chance four years earlier. Amid the international crowd of runners was a 18-year-old South African named Zola Budd, who famously ran barefoot. I plunked my gear on the grass, about as close to the track as anyone in the stadium. When you have spent your life meeting and photographing people, often in their best or worst moments, you learn, sometimes the hard way, that some truths are best left unspoken. They were doing their best, yet fate conspired to take a small error and turn it into a tragedy for both of these great athletes.

It is a location packed with the potential for drama. I grabbed my gear and started walking along the final leg of the track. Decker broke the 800m indoor prep record three times, highlighted by a 2:02.4 800y/2:01.8 800m in San Diego that lasted until 2017, when Sammy Watson nipped the record at 2:01.78.
289 results for mary decker Save mary decker to get e-mail alerts and updates on your eBay Feed. Because South Africa (still under apartheid) was banned from the Olympics, Zola, who had a British grandfather, was able to obtain citizenship and run for Great Britain. Mary Decker Slaney was born on August 4, 1958 in Flemington, New Jersey, USA as Mary Teresa Decker. But they weren't the competitors, as Maricica Puica from Romania had set the fastest time in 1984.

In the history of athletic achievement, there are shared moments of spectacle that become revered as milestones belonging to the competitor, near winner, and the public at large. Zola (who now goes by Zola Pieterse) coaches at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and still regularly runs. At one point I said something about ’84, and with good humor she guided me back to 2019—she clearly wasn’t of a mind to dwell on the ups and downs of that time, and I didn’t want to press it too heavily especially as a believer that a picture is worth a thousand words. “The pain in Mary Decker’s face was something that almost should have remained the ultimate private moment.”My film was sent on the overnight plane to New York, processed and edited the next morning, and the image led the I knew that neither athlete looked upon that day as one of their finest. Runner's World participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.
Bannister’s four-minute mile, Willie Mays’s ‘bread basket’ World Series catch, Bob Beamon’s miraculous long jump in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Her family had moved to Southern California and she was inspired to join the Blue Angels Track Club while in 7th grade at Portola Junior High in 1971. Because of the flickering in my camera, I couldn’t really see what had happened, only that there was a patch of red (Mary’s outfit) moving into a place it shouldn’t have been. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io In the pre-digital age, rolls of film with 36 exposures and cameras shooting at four frames per second forced you to figure out, each time the runners passed, if you had enough film for one more lap or if you should quickly rewind and change the film. She still looks like she could run five miles, though these days she is dedicated to her four dogs. Although the race was eventually won by Romanian runner Maricica Puică, it is mostly remembered for what happened midway. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. A string of arthritis attacks no longer permits Mary (who now uses her married name, Slaney) to run, but she walks her dogs in the hilly woods near her home in Oregon; we met there in August 2019, 35 years to the week since the Los Angeles Games.

Join Facebook to connect with Mary Decker and others you may know. Oudoors, she lowered her 800 HSR to 2:02.29, beating the Russians again in Durham.Finally, as a junior in 1975, she returned to Millrose and ran 2:55.2 for 1000m – another prep record. It’s Mary Decker, she says, “Not only was she talented, but she also ran with such heart.”

Jody was born on January 7, 1930 in … The American Mary Decker was poised to win the gold; she’d been denied the chance four years earlier. I had spent much of that week working near the finish line, a place always well populated with photographers for the simple reason that so many big races are won at the end.

Zola Budd was a mystery.

It was a good spot.

“I couldn’t really see what had happened, only that there was a patch of red moving into a place it shouldn’t have been.”Races with many laps (this one was seven and a half) require a constant edge on the photographer’s part.


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