LONDON -- Zola Budd's brief but controversial international track and field career reads like a Hollywood film script.
The scenario, even her name, seems like the invention of a scriptwriter.
The tiny, barefoot South African runner starts the year by setting an unofficial world record, gets flown to Britain for a huge amount of cash and changes nationality to British amid a storm of controversy.
She then wins her expected place in Britain's Olympic team and qualifies for a showdown in the Olympic final with her schoolgirl idol, Mary Decker, whose picture she had on her bedroom wall in South Africa.
In that race, they collide, Decker tumbles to the ground, Budd is booed by the American crowd, returns to South Africa in tears, and then decides to give it all up for the love of her sick mother, Tossie.
If it wasn't true, it would not be believable. The punchline was, however, that young Zola could not quite handle the starring role.
Her announcement in South Africa Thursday, significantly in her native tongue of Afrikaans, that she would not be returning to Britain to run again, whipped up as big a storm in Britain as did her arrival in the country in March.
Nigel Cooper, secretary of the British Amateur Athletics Board, was told of Budd's announcement by United Press International, and said his initial reaction was one of regret and surprise.
'I am very very disappointed,' he said. 'I think a lot of people will feel very let down by that news. She was a difficult lass to get to know, but I got to know her fairly well, and thought she was enjoying the competitive situation that she had in Britain.
'This has nothing to do with athletics as such, but a small though significant problem around her family. I don't accept that she came here just to run under a flag of convenience at the Olympics.
'She told me she was setting her sights at least three years hence and was looking forward to competing on the world stage for the next few years. Her future looked very encouraging, she proved that she was world class and had financially lucrative times to look forward to on all fronts. Although it looks like the end of the story, it isn't. That will only happen when she runs in South Africa again. Then she will become ineligible to run anywhere else.'
Denis Howell, the former British minister for sport, called for a full inquiry Thursday into the whole affair.
'If the reports are accurate that Budd does not intend to return to this country where she is now a citizen, then this raises the most serious questions about the behavior of the British government,' he said.
'Her father was granted British citizenship in record time so that Zola Budd could also be granted citizenship in 10 days flat.
'It is known that the greatest concern was expressed by officials of the Foreign Office and the Home Office, quite rightly, because thousands of good citizens have been waiting years for such a privilege.'
Budd leapt into the limelight in January this year when she clocked 15 minutes 1.83 seconds for the 5,000 meters, a time that was almost 6.5 seconds faster than the official world record set by Decker.
The exclusion of apartheid South Africa from the world of track and field meant Budd's mark would not be ratified as a record. Furthermore, her performance highlighted the fact that the talented Bloemfontein-born runner would never have the chance to compete against the world's best in the Olympic Games.
But all that changed in a whirlwind 10 days in the spring. She came to Britain with the help of the Daily Mail on March 24. She was granted citizenship on April 6, joined the Aldershot and Farnham Athletics Club the following week and made her debut in the country on April 14 in a minor meet at Dartford, Kent.
She qualified for the British Olympic team May 28, two days after her 18th birthday. In little more than five months from that 5,000 meters run, she had booked a place in Los Angeles.
On July 13 she set a world record in the 2,000 meters, since bettered, and was being touted as a possible medalist in the Olympic 3,000 meters where she was due to face Decker.
In the single most dramatic moment of the Olympic Games, perhaps of the whole sporting year, the dream was shattered. Budd and Decker collided in the final, Decker tumbled out of the race and Budd faded to finish seventh.
She was disconsolate afterwards, disillusioned and depressed and quickly returned to South Africa after the Games, where she has remained ever since.
