Mary Decker Slaney is the heartbreak kid of American track and field.
Before she married and was known as Mary Decker, the distance runner was a perennial favorite for an Olympic medal. But she came up short in 1976; 1980 was to be her year, until President Carter chose to boycott the Moscow Olympics to protest Soviet militarism in Afghanistan. At Los Angeles in 1984, it looked like Mary Decker would finally win Olympic gold - until South African barefoot runner Zola Budd, competing for Britain, tripped her part of the way through the race. (The bitch!) Mary Decker Slaney ran her last Olympic race in Atlanta in 1996. Though she wasn't favored to win anything - and didn't - the moment served to remind us that the most important thing in the Games really is to take part rather than to win. :-)
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