Former world record holder Zola Budd races unannounced at local meet; wins

The 47-year-old former 5000m women’s world record holder Zola Budd showed up at the Great American XC Invitational in Cary, N.C., and decided she would like to race.

“My kids were running today and we were driving up to Raleigh anyways so I wanted to see if I could run in the open race and they graciously allowed me and it was a great event to take part in,” the legendary South African-turned-Brit told Flotrack.

Budd won the 5K cross-country race by 51 seconds in 17:47, not quite the 14:48 she ran as a teenager to smash the world record, but a solid time for the masters runner.

“I’m pleased. I haven’t been running under 18:00 for quite awhile so I’m pleased with the time,” said Budd.

Budd first unofficially broke the world record over 5000m when she was 17-years-old with a time of 15:01.83 back in 1984. But South Africa’s policy of apartheid caused them to be banned from international sport. She went on to officially break the record in a time of 14:48.07 a year later after a controversial fast-tracking to get her British citizenship.

The former world record holder had a good bit of advice for other runners: “Running is just a part of your life, it’s not your life so take the bad runs with the good runs and make an experience of it.”

Budd was a part of one of the most controversial moments in Olympic history when she got tangled up with pre-race favourite Mary Decker of the United States. Decker went down and was not able to continue. Many blamed Budd for the incident, even though she was running in front of Decker.