The Fall

Synopsis

August 10, 1984, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum: Around four laps into the women's 3000m final at the Olympic Games an American athlete loses her stride, clips the heels of the runner in front and hits the track, her medal chances gone. That woman was Joan Hansen, but nobody tells her story now. Nobody ever did. Even as Hansen staggered to her feet, unfolding ahead was the dramatic conclusion to another story, an ending in keeping with months of controversy that extended far beyond sport's boundaries. The story of Zola Budd and Mary Decker. Accidents are not uncommon in the hurly-burly of elite distance running - Hansen's fate seconds earlier bears witness to that - and the bare facts are unremarkable enough: Budd's legs became entangled with Decker's once, then again. The American crashed off the track, Budd continued and finished seventh. But the circumstances surrounding this split-second incident - personal and political, cultural and competitive - mark it out as a tale to be told and retold.