Confusion Hurts Ticket Sales for Slaney-Budd Race

Fewer than half the tickets for today’s 3,000-meter showdown between America’s Mary Decker Slaney and Britain’s Zola Budd have been sold, officials said here Friday.

While the athletes relaxed on the eve of their first meeting since colliding at last year’s Los Angeles Olympics, a spokesman for the organizers confirmed reports that only 8,000 of the 16,500 seats had been sold.

The race, which has been promoted as an Olympic rematch, is the highlight of the second day in a two-day IAAF-Mobil grand prix meet at London’s Crystal Palace stadium.

The Friday night portion of the meet was sold out.

“The British public is not used to having two days of top athletics back to back,” said Alan Pascoe, former Olympic hurdler and one of the organizing team.

The Times of London reported that the Slaney-Budd race originally was to have been held on Friday but was moved to today when the whole event was extended to cover two days.

The newspaper said many fans had bought tickets for Friday expecting to see the race and that sales were slow because the public was unwilling to buy a second ticket for today.

Said Pascoe: “The clash was never ever going to be (Friday). Mary Slaney was due to run anyway, but once Zola Budd agreed to compete as well, the race was fixed for Saturday.”

Meanwhile, officials refused to confirm reports that Slaney and Budd would each receive $35,000.

Although ticket sales have been disappointing, about 100 million television viewers are expected to watch the race, which will be shown live in five countries, among them the United States. (In Southern California, it will be shown delayed on Wide World of Sports, starting at 4 p.m., on KABC-TV, Channel 7.)

At last year’s 3,000-meter Olympic final, Slaney ran up the heels of the barefoot Budd and fell, the tangle wrecking the medal hopes of both.

Slaney fell onto the infield with a painful muscle pull in her hip. The South African-born Budd continued, but finished only seventh as Romania’s Maricica Puica won the gold medal.

Both said here that the absence of Puica today would devalue the race. She was invited, but her national federation declined to send her.

Last year on the same track, Budd beat the world record in the 2,000 meters, but her performances have been spotty this season--two wins and two defeats--and she said Thursday that she did not expect to win today.

Slaney will be running her first outdoor 3,000 of the season but is the reigning world champion and has run the distance eight seconds faster than Budd.

“I expect to go out and run a good pace. But I don’t want to get caught up in a tactical situation where you are running 10 or 20 seconds slower than you can,” Slaney said.

“If no one else sets a reasonable pace, then I’m prepared to do so.”

Budd said that she and Slaney would be foolish to ignore the strong competition, which includes Cornelia Burki, the South African-born Swiss runner who holds the fastest 3,000-meter time this year, 8 minutes 40.10 seconds.

Slaney said she hoped to lower that to 8:25. The world record of 8:22.62 is held by Tatyana Kazankina of the Soviet Union.

Also in the field of 21 today are Canada’s Lynn Williams, the Olympic bronze medalist and Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen, world record-holder for 5,000 meters and the marathon.