She’s Finer Than Old Whine : Slaney Has Accomplishments That Can’t Be Ignored, but She Still Gets Tripped Up by 1984 Incident

Complex, isn’t it, that dividing line between sarcasm and sexism, and where it intersects our Olympic rings.

When a competitive male, speedskater Dan Jansen, picks himself up, dusts himself off and starts all over again after tumbling headlong onto the ice, through no one’s doing but his own, a public portrait evolves of someone universally admired as a profile in courage, whereas when Nancy Kerrigan, the figure skater, or Mary Slaney, the distance runner, rise from similarly painful spills, the casualties of someone else’s intrusion, each often finds herself mocked thereafter as some kind of crybaby.

The treatment continues for Slaney, who will turn 38 on the final day of the Atlanta Olympics. After qualifying for those games Monday night, on legs and a torso embroidered like a war-memorial quilt by 19 surgical procedures, Slaney deserved nothing but compliments bordering on awe. Just like Jansen before the 1994 Winter Games, a medal from an Olympics is the only trophy missing from her case.

Instead, the very first mention of this athletic marvel on that night’s nationwide TV sports-news roundup was of a runner most famous as someone who never missed “a chance to whine,” as though, after 23 years of international competition, a full dozen years beyond the Zola Budd incident, this remained Mary Decker Slaney’s principal claim to fame.

How could she be best known for that, this woman who has set 22 U.S. records in track events 800 to 10,000 meters long?

Not even known for a fall.

Known for: “A chance to whine.”

That this comment would come from one of ESPN’s women sportscasters made it all the more mystifying and mean. Yet, just when one wonders why a TV personality would belabor an old label such as this, one picks up a copy of the U.S. Olympic trials’ official guide published by USA Track & Field, essentially a statistical rather than biographical publication, to research details of the 1984 trials, held in Los Angeles a few weeks before the Olympics.

Recounting an upset by Ruth Wysocki in the 1,500 meters that marked Mary’s first defeat to any countrywoman in four years, this USA Track & Field guide reports: “Decker, who was never one to decline a chance to whine, allowed that she was . . . “

Twelve years later, the label sticks.

Why is this? The story of Mary Slaney belongs in made-for-TV manuscripts and on bookstore biography shelves, with sympathy and praise on practically every page. For some odd reason, however, Slaney rates less public exposure in a clueless world than Tonya Harding, Miss Scarlet in the hall with the lead pipe.

In the case of the deserving Dan Jansen, a family tragedy distracted him, one from which it took six years of Olympic disappointment to overcome. Yet although Slaney’s terrible fall of ’84 cost her a medal, she has been waiting twice as long as Jansen without half as much noticeable affection.

She doesn’t appeal for any. It just sometime seems as though people believe she tripped up poor, barefoot Zola Budd in the 3,000 meters, rather than the other way around, or that by sobbing and pitching a fit of anger over the undoing of years of hard work, Mary’s conduct was . . . what, unsportswomanlike? Was not her response, like Kerrigan’s years later, merely human? Pricked, did they not bleed? One would like to think a victory lap by Slaney at these Olympics would moisten every eye in the house, same way Jansen’s did.

At 14, she ran in an international meet against the Russians.

At 37, she says, “I feel like I’m starting all over.”

On a muggy day in downtown Atlanta, the morning after moving closer to the finish line of a lifelong chase, Slaney is riding in the van of Alberto Salazar, once a marathon runner of distinction who has become a friend to Mary and advises her training. Salazar’s oldest son, Antonio, 13, is along for the ride.

“Did you know that when Mary here was 13, she had the fastest time in the 800 for any woman in the country?” Salazar turns to his son and asks.

Antonio says no.

“In the country,” his father repeats, trying to drive home the point. “How would you like to go run right now, against the fastest men in all of America?”

Images of the previous evening’s run are fresh in Salazar’s mind. He can see Slaney in fifth place--this woman of advancing years who once set a rabbit’s pace in any race she ran--with two laps of a 12 1/2-lap battle remaining. And then along comes Mary. Moving up to fourth, with the crowd rising to its feet. Then surging from fourth to second, 300 meters short of the finish.

Lynn Jennings, the leader, accelerates and Mary drafts her like it’s NASCAR. Suddenly, she stumbles. The ghost of Zola Budd has stuck out her big bare foot. No, it is actually Amy Rudolph’s, a horror-stricken 22-year-old who will confess to Slaney afterward her guilt. Mary looks over her left shoulder for spooks. She recovers and runs second to Jennings, making the Olympic squad.

“When I realized what was happening,” Slaney says the next morning, remembering the four runners in front of her, “I said to myself, ‘This is not going to make it. I better get going.’ I guess I just put my whole heart into it.

“I haven’t worked this hard, through all the problems and injuries, not to give it a good shot. For me, just being here, being able to run without pain, is a miracle. Whatever you have, whether it’s a running injury or headaches or a toothache, it wears on you, it beats you down. It just felt so good to me to finally feel so good.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy being second.”

Back when literally in pigtails, Mary Decker was ahead of her time--and everyone else’s. She ran a 3:09:27 marathon when she was 12. She ran a 4:55 mile at 13. She broke the world indoor record over 800 yards when she was 15. Mary was a little lamb, her feet as white as snow, and everywhere that Mary ran, a mark was sure to go.

For all her success elsewhere, the Olympics became a cumulus cloud. Her 1980 trip to the Moscow Olympics was called off when America boycotted. At the Coliseum four years later came the fall, preceded by that loss to Wysocki at the trials and criticism for failing to give credit where due. Slaney won by Secretariat-like lengths in the 1,500 and 3,000 at the Indianapolis trials of 1988, only to wilt at the Seoul Olympics to eighth and 10th place, respectively.

Again and again, Mary’s body went into the shop. Foot surgeries. Broken toe. Achilles’ tendon. Kidney infection.

“I’ve personally seen it,” Salazar says, wincing with sympathy pain. “I’ve been in the operating room with Mary three or four times. She’s had a hard go of it. One thing heals, then boom, a stress fracture or something. It was really heartbreaking to watch.”

Slaney ran on sheer willpower at the 1992 trials in New Orleans, rarely sound enough to train. She ran behind Regina Jacobs and PattiSue Plumer down the stretch of the 1,500 with three women qualifying for Barcelona, only to be caught by Suzy Hamilton near the wire. She tried pace-setting in the 3,000, only to drift back to sixth place. And another Olympics bit the dust.

Another black cloud.

“I hope it’s passed,” Slaney says.

As recently as six months ago, her feet were in such pain, according to Slaney, it hurt to stand and do the dishes. All she wanted to do was her daily jog. Being unable to run, for Slaney, is like being confined in a cage, with no one willing to spring open the gate.

Salazar doesn’t know how to restrain her at times, short of resorting to trickery. He says, “Mary is like a racehorse. She’s got a lot of heart and you have to hold her back.

“We don’t have to tell her what to do. We have to tell her what not to do. We threaten things like, ‘OK, if she does run too fast, that means she can’t do the rest of the race.’ I remember one day after setting a new record, Mary went out and did 10 miles in something like 55, 56 minutes. I had to say, ‘What are you doing? Noureddine Morceli [world-record holder in the mile] doesn’t do that!’ ”

Twig thin, no hips to speak of, Slaney is a runner’s runner, tireless and tunnel-visioned. She just keeps going, and going and going. So many miles have clicked off on her body’s odometer that to come this far, only to blow a tire again, well, let’s just say that track wags would have had a field day.

The stumble Monday night had an eerie familiarity. Slaney said, “For an instant there, I thought I was going down. It reminded me of you know what.”

Twelve years later.

Still reliving the legend of the fall.

Mary Slaney holds the American records in the 800, the 1,500, the mile, the 2,000 and the 3,000, to this day. She ran then, she runs now, she will run again, with the best of them.

But in the new book, “100 Stars of American Track & Field,” published in cooperation with USA Track & Field, the name of Mary Slaney does not appear. Must have been a slip.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MARY SLANEY CHRONOLOGY

When Mary Slaney qualified for the U.S. Olympic team at 5,000 meters Monday night, it marked a remarkable return to world-class status for an athlete who has had her share of problems. A Slaney chronology:

1971--Runs a 4:55 mile at age 13.

1972--Too young to compete in Munich Olympics.

1974--Sets world indoor records in 1,000 yards (2:26.7) and 800 (2:01.8). Sustains a stress fracture in ankle during training.

1976--Misses Montreal Olympics because of shin injury.

1977--Operated on for compartment syndrome, caused by overdeveloped calf muscles pushing against fibrous tissue sheaths.

1978--Lowers own world indoor mark for 1,000 to 2:23.8.

1979--Wins Pan Am Games 1,500 despite sciatic nerve injury.

1980--Sets four records and wins Olympic trials 1,500 in meet record but misses Olympics because of boycott.

1981--Marries marathoner Ron Tabb.

1982--Sets 17 world and American records and wins the Sullivan Award and the Jesse Owens Award.

1983--Sweeps 800 and 1,500 in first world track and field championships. Separates from husband.

1984--Trips on Zola Budd’s heel in the 3,000-meter final at Los Angeles Olympics and tumbles out of the race.

1985--Sets U.S. records for 800, mile and 3,000 meters. Cramp in calf forces her out of meet in East Rutherford, N.J., where she is carried off by new husband Richard Slaney.

1986--Gives birth to daughter, Ashley.

1987--Undergoes Achilles’ tendon surgery.

1988--Wins 1,500 and 3,000 at U.S. Olympic trials. Finishes eighth in 1,500 and 10th in 3,000 at Seoul Games.

1989--Undergoes surgery on Achilles’ tendon and left calf.

1990--Pulls out of 1,500 final after qualifying at nationals, saying she is not fit to run.

1991--No. 1 in U.S. in 1,500 (4:03.7).

1992--Fourth in 1,500 and sixth in 3,000 at U.S. Olympic trials.