1984. A summer blessed with two months of solid sunshine in the west of Scotland. Or so it seems as I look back it through almost quarter of a century’s worth of rose tinted spectacles. But when I wasn’t outside pretending to be Robert Millar, Viv Richards, Kenny Dalglish or John McEnroe, I was in front of the TV glued to the action from Los Angeles.
The event that really had me gripped was the decathlon and the exploits of Daley Thompson, the athlete who inspired a generation of kids to batter the life out of their computer keyboards. Thompson was the world and Olympic champion, but he faced a titanic struggle with his German rival Jürgen Hingsen, eventually needing to break Hingsen’s world record to take gold. I think the fact that competition involves ten disciplines over two days, with competitors often battling with injuries, gives the decathlon a sense of narrative that is often missing from other track and field events. The fact that it was Great Britain versus Germany probably helped as well.
The single moment that sticks in my mind, though, happened in the women’s 3000m race. Zola Budd was the new golden girl of British athletics: a world-record breaker at only 17 who ran in bare feet. That she had been imported from South Africa, a country that was banned from international sporting competition because of apartheid, only added to the hype that surrounded her. As things turned out, the final of the 3000m was completely over-shadowed by one incident when Budd bumped into American world champion Mary Decker, sending sprawling to the ground. The home crowd turned against Budd, booing her for the remainder of the race: she eventually faded to seventh place.
Kudos to anyone that remembers who won the race without looking it up.
