Zola Budd in Outdoor Debut Today

Distance runner Zola Budd is quietly preparing for another outdoor season, hoping for more dazzling performances amid continuing debate over her status as an international athlete.

Budd, known for her barefoot running style, makes her outdoor season debut today when she defends her World Cross-Country title in Neuchatel, Switzerland.

She gave notice of her form last month when she posted an indoor world best for the women’s 3,000 meters while running for Britain against Hungary at Cosford.

Budd’s time of 8:39.79 seconds lowered Olga Bondarenko’s previous mark by more than 2 1/2 seconds and came just nine months after she smashed the outdoor 5,000-meter record.

But no matter how many records she sets or how much she shuns publicity, Budd’s critics are never far behind.

Since emigrating in March 1984 and becoming a British subject, the 19-year-old has been the subject of heated debate over her still sensitive connections to her birthplace, South Africa.

Other events have also kept her in the news: Circumstances of her swift naturalization and her tangle on the track with Mary Decker Slaney at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Recently, she withdrew from the national cross-country championships in Leicester, fearing a repetition of last year’s event when anti-apartheid demonstrators forced her off the track.

In the latest controversy, some press reports questioned her motives for doing most of her training in South Africa, where her family still lives.

Rules governing the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh this summer stipulate that any athlete not born in the country but wishing to compete for a certain nation must live there for six of the preceding 12 months, or have a “permanent residence” there. South Africa is not a commonwealth country.

Budd responded by writing to the Women’s Amateur Athletic Assn., promising to fulfill all the necessary requirements to run for England at the games.

She also bought a $88,000 house in Guildford, Surrey, a few miles south of London, and said it gave her a sense of belonging.

In a rare interview, she told the London Daily Express last month: “Of course I realize why some people are against me. I suppose I can sympathize with some of their views. I just wish they would realize that it’s all a bit bewildering for me, too.

“I need to feel that as much as some British people need to feel I’m one of them.”

The anti-Budd brigade was not impressed.

“We believe the spirit of the Commonwealth Games rules is being violated,” said Sam Ramsamy, chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee.

But British track officials said their athletes were private individuals who could live and train where they liked, provided no rules were broken.

Brought up speaking her native Afrikaans, Budd now has better command of the English language and is more communicative at news conferences.

“People talk about the principles at stake. They forget I’m the person at stake, the one in the middle,” she told the Daily Express.

“I am sensitive. I do get hurt. If I had done things my way, I would never have competed in the 1984 Olympics. I would have come here in a far quieter fashion, hopefully been accepted and then gone for selection in the Commonwealth.