A South African Export: Athletics : International sport: Zola Budd Pieterse says sending multiracial teams worldwide will help promote unity.

When word reached Zola Budd Pieterse last Tuesday afternoon that the International Olympic Committee had officially reinstated South Africa, paving the way for its inclusion in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, she quietly listened and absorbed the news.

Because of remarkable change in South Africa and its abolition of remaining apartheid laws, the nation that was once the world’s sports pariah was free to return to the international arena.

But Budd Pieterse, who gained notoriety when her bare feet tangled with Mary Decker Slaney at the 1984 Summer Olympics while competing for Great Britain, was wary. South Africans had believed they were about to gain international acceptance before and had been disappointed.

At last, she was convinced that the news was genuine. She allowed herself to celebrate.

“I’m very positive about it at the moment,” she said Saturday in a telephone interview from her home in Bloemfontein, South Africa. “There’s a real optimism in South African athletics that hasn’t been here in many years. I’m excited about the prospects of running again, just being able to go somewhere like the Olympics.”

South Africa last competed in the Olympics in 1960 and has endured three decades of organized sports boycotts. While Tuesday’s announcement affects only Olympic eligibility, many sports federations are expected to readmit South Africa in the coming weeks.

Budd Pieterse said her greatest hope is that the opportunity to send multiracial teams around the world would help heal old wounds in South Africa and promote unity for its people.

“South African sport is the biggest pastime in the country,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what race or color or whatever you are, as long as you are from South Africa, everybody is behind you. And that unifies us. Athletics have done quite a lot for South Africa.”

It is believed that South Africa will field a team in the track and field World Championships, beginning Aug. 24 in Tokyo. It would mark the country’s official return to international competition.

Just as South African sports officials have been, Budd Pieterse was careful not expect too much too soon.

“We’ll have to take it very cautiously,” she said. “We have to be very realistic about it. I’ve got to not expect too much and just go in there and see what happens. Run a few races and then decide. I think that’s the best approach.”

One reason for the caution is that the South African track season ended three months ago. The prospect of preparing for a world championship in the middle of South Africa’s winter is daunting. Some speculate that the return could come at the African Games at Cairo in September, rather than in Tokyo.

“I think as long as we can compete internationally in the next few months, it doesn’t have to be Tokyo or the African Games or whatever,” she said. “As long as we can compete internationally.

“As far as being in the off-season, our approach will have to be very low-key. Just to get used to it. We will be coming over from cross-country season. . . . That would be difficult.”

Budd Pieterse, 24, is eligible to compete for South Africa, even though she gave up her citizenship to compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games for Great Britain. She regained South African citizenship in 1989 when she married. And, because she has not competed for Great Britain in three years--a period required under international rules--Budd Pieterse should have no obstacles to her international competition.

None, other than her own reservations. Budd Pieterse has waffled about returning to international competition.

Last year she told The Times: “If something reckless happened, and South Africa was allowed back into the Olympics tomorrow, and the opportunity arose for me to run a few meetings, I might do it. But, on the other hand, I would be very careful not to let athletics take over again. Not to run because I have to, but because I enjoy it. There is always the balance.”

Since her marriage to Mike Pieterse, she has taken running less seriously, she says, training once a day with a low-key group. The regimen has produced her best results in years.

Budd Pieterse set the South African mile record with a time of 4 minutes 23.38 seconds and has run 4:06.40 for 1,500 meters. Her time over 3,000 meters is equally impressive, 8:35.72. That is the second-fastest time in the world this year, behind another South African, Elana Meyer, who has run 8:32.00.

Budd Pieterse’s international experience could prove invaluable to the South Africans, whose excitement about their return to world competition is tempered by trepidation about what they may find.

Few South African athletes have ever left the country and--even with the world climate more favorable--any team marching under a South African flag is a likely target for controversy.

“Of course, we will be very nervous,” Budd Pieterse said. “I think the team will draw together and help each other.”

In a related development, the executive committee of the U.S. Olympic Committee postponed action Saturday on a proposal for amnesty for 14 U.S. track and field athletes and three coaches who were banned for taking part in tours of South Africa in 1988 and 1989.

Such a move would allow the athletes to compete in USOC-controlled events--the Olympics, the Pan American Games, the World University Games and the U.S. Olympic Festival.

To compete openly again, the athletes would have to have their bans rescinded by The Athletics Congress, which first imposed them in November 1988.

The proposal could effect the future of javelin thrower Tom Petranoff, who, for his role as athlete-recruiter for the first tour, was banned from international competition for 12 years.

Petranoff, a two-time U.S. Olympian and the former world record-holder, has resettled in South Africa and is in the process of gaining South African citizenship.