First viewed : July 1984
Another Olympics came round for me to mostly ignore but I do recall one or two things about this one. The first is the obvious one, the notorious Zola Budd / Mary Decker incident in the women's 300 m final when Decker, the hot favourite from the US, was left sprawling on the trackside after trying to overtake Budd. Budd was already a controversial competitor after being fast tracked for British citizenship because she wouldn't have been allowed to represent her native South Africa and Decker accused her of tripping her deliberately. This seems unlikely as the 17 year old Budd was clearly shaken by the encounter herself and slipped from medal contention to finish seventh . Most neutral observers gave her the benefit of the doubt.
The other thing I recall is forming a strong dislike of arrogant and camp US star athlete Carl Lewis. I remember British decathlete Daley Thompson drawing attention to his effeminacy on a T-shirt that would probably get him arrested today.
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