When Mary Decker Slaney fell agonizingly to the turf in Los Angeles in 1984, a victim of tangled feet with Zola Budd, it seemed to be the painful end of an Olympic dream. The young woman, who at 21 began amassing world records, established herself as America's best middle-distance runner. But luck was never with Slaney, who seemed star-crossed where the Olympics were concerned. During the 1976 Games she was laid up with leg injuries, and she had to sit out the following Olympics because of the U.S. boycott. And by the summer of '88, Slaney would turn 30.
But she...
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