Britain’s Thatcher Criticizes Effort to Suspend Budd From Competition

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking Tuesday in the House of Commons, denounced as “repugnant” efforts by the leaders of world track and field to suspend South African-born runner Zola Budd.

As Thatcher made her first public comment on the matter, 100 of the prime minister’s fellow Conservatives urged British track authorities to ignore a mandate from the International Amateur Athletic Federation to ban Budd for at least a year, while the same number of opponents from the Labor party signed a motion urging them to punish her.

Thatcher repeated Britain’s commitment to the Gleneagles agreement, which restricts sporting links with South Africa, but she came out unequivocally in support of the 21-year-old Budd, who became a British subject four years ago.

“A number of us find it rather repugnant that so much effort is now concerned with stopping a young woman competing in international athletics,” Thatcher said.

The British Amateur Athletics Board will decide Sunday whether to suspend Budd for a minimum of 12 months for links to South Africa--barred from the sport for its apartheid policies--or risk the entire British track and field squad’s missing the Seoul Olympics.