Zola Budd returns to SA

Updated: 30 Sep 2019

World famous South African athlete Zola Budd, who had emigrated to Britain in 1984 to take part in the Los Angeles Olympic Games, announced that she has decided to withdraw from international athletics and to return to SA permanently. In April 1988, her name was added to the UN blacklist and it seemed likely that the British Olympic team would be banned from the next Olympics if she were included. Budd competed in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, though with less success than she had previously enjoyed when she captured world imagination as a shy teenager running barefoot and winning one world record after the other in the early 1980s.

How we know this

01South African Institute of Race Relations. (1989). Race Relations Survey 1988/89, Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, p. 38).

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Zola Budd returns to SA. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012743

South African History Online (2011) 'Zola Budd returns to SA', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012743 (Accessed: 7 October 2026).

South African History Online, Zola Budd returns to SA [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012743, (accessed 7 October 2026).

"Zola Budd returns to SA." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012743. Accessed 7 Oct. 2026.

South African History Online. "Zola Budd returns to SA." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012743.