Oft-Injured, She’s Now Healthy : Mary Slaney Is Hoping to Get One Last Shot at Olympic Competition

One of the lasting images from the 1984 Olympics is that of a runner collapsing in tears after a collision with her bitter rival, Zola Budd, knocked her out of the women’s 3,000-meter final.

Nearly 12 years later, Mary Slaney is back and hoping to get one last shot at Olympic competition.

The woman who once held all the American records between 800 and 10,000 meters has been missing from the track and field scene in recent years, but at age 37, she is healthy for the first time in a long time.

“There are no more aches and pains,” a smiling Slaney said during the Atlanta opening of USA Track & Field’s Images of Excellence show, a historical review of track and field dating back to 1863 that is touring the country. “I feel solid. I feel healthy.

“I’m very ecstatic that I’m healthy . . . feeling just like I used to be.”

Now she is gearing for this year’s Olympic trials in June at Atlanta, the site of the Games.

“The Olympics are here and I want my chance,” Slaney said. “After Los Angeles, I never thought I would get another opportunity to run in an Olympics in this country.”

Slaney has not raced on the track since the 1992 Olympic trials, when she failed to make the U.S. team, finishing fourth in the 1,500 meters and sixth in the 3,000. While disappointing, the results were respectable considering that Slaney was competing with an iron deficiency.

When her physical condition allowed, she ran some road races in the past four years, even beating Budd in a road mile in Australia in 1992.

When Slaney was healthy, there was no better women’s distance runner in the world.

Bursting on to the scene as a 15-year-old in pigtails and braces, she loved competing, going to the lead quickly, establishing her superiority and daring anyone to catch her. Not many did.

Then, after years of overpowering performances that included several world records, Slaney was slowed by a series of debilitating injuries that required between 18 and 20 operations. Even Slaney has lost count of the number.

Throughout the frustration of being unable to compete, Slaney did not lose her desire--except once--to return to the sport that has been her lifeblood and livelihood for more than 20 years.

“That was in the summer of 1994, when I couldn’t even get up or stand or lie on the couch without pain,” she said. “That was the first and only time I considered giving it up. I just wanted to get healthy.

“I thought I was done trying. I felt out of control.”

That pain, caused by a throbbing left Achilles tendon, lasted from May until September. Finally, after doctors diagnosed the injury, surgery was performed.

“Twenty-five% of my Achilles was gone,” she said. “It was degenerative. It had been unbearably painful just to sit. I just wanted to walk again.”

Before that, Slaney had two bone operations on her left foot and has had two operations on the same foot since then.

“Everything was weakened--the muscle, the bone,” she said. “My foot was broken. After that, I fractured something else. Then, it happened one more time.”

The cause of all of Slaney’s injuries, she said, “is just the way I run. I put a lot of stress on my lower legs.”

Slaney also added to her problems by trying to come back too quickly from injuries. When she did, she would aggravate the existing injury or, by favoring that injury, would hurt something else.

Impatience was one of her biggest enemies.

“If I had stayed patient in the past . . . “ she said. “But I pushed myself too hard.”

Helping Slaney’s return to running has been an orthotic that eases her foot pain.

“Now I’m sticking to a program and I hope to be ready when it counts,” she said. “I don’t want to be impulsive.”

As she tries for her third Olympics, she probably will limit herself to one event, concentrating on the 5,000.

That is one of the three events, along with the 1,000 and 10,000, she once held American records in, marks that have since been eclipsed by younger runners. But Slaney still holds records in the 800, 1,500, mile, 2,000 and 3,000.

She also does not have a trials qualifying time in the 5,000 but may try to qualify at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia in late April.

Slaney has run only three 5,000s, but at this stage of her career, she figures that is her best distance now.

“I’m telling people to watch out for her at the Olympic trials,” her coach, former marathoner Alberto Salazar, said. “She’ll be ready.”

Slaney estimates that she hasn’t felt fully ready since the 1988 trials, when she won the 1,500 and 3,000. The iron deficiency kicked in for the first time shortly after the trials, and she wound up eighth in the 1,500 and 10th in the 3,000 at the Seoul Olympics.

Now, because people’s expectations of her are not high, the pressure is off, and Slaney is elated.

“Take the pressure away, and it’s fun again,” she said.

Still, there is worry that she could get hurt again.

“After a while, you doubt yourself,” she said. “You have to get to the point where you believe it. Right now, I’m gun-shy. I’m afraid to push to the point where I used to.

“It’s not good to think that way, but I guess maybe it is good because it makes you more careful.”

Slaney compares her situation this year to her productive 1983 season, when she won the 1,500-meter and 3,000-meter gold medals at the world championships at Helsinki, Finland.

“Nobody expected me to do well then except me,” she said. “Nobody expects me to run this year, no less do well.

“I think people are surprised I’m still running.”