Stories from the Book – Owning Our Failures – Mary Decker and Jane Saville

With less than three laps remaining in a race the world was watching, hometown favourite Mary Decker and the barefoot South African-turned-Englishwoman Zola Budd, an 18 year old athletics sensation, were running so closely together that their feet and legs were constantly in contact.   The women’s 3,000 metres at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics will be forever recalled for what happened next.  While Decker shortened her strides in an attempt to stay clear of trouble, nothing could prevent the chaos of arms and legs that resulted in Decker’s fall into the infield.  For spectators at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and for TV viewers around the world, time stood still.  Despite the fact that both athletes later competed at other Olympics and won World Championships, their careers, in our eyes, ended with Decker’s catastrophic fall.  To pause was failure.  To stop, or be stopped, was little less than tragedy.

 After their race, Zola Budd attempted to apologise to Mary Decker for the accident, despite the reality that she couldn’t have been fully to blame since she was in front of Decker at the time.  Decker told Budd, in no uncertain terms, not to bother with an apology.  Not only were we left with a bitter taste in our mouths, we were left with the lingering feeling that something was not quite right, that somehow the spirit of the Olympics wavered and diminished at that very moment.

 At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Jane Saville glowed with anticipation as she prepared to walk the final metres into her hometown stadium as the gold medallist in the 20 kilometre racewalk.  Having prepared for this moment all her life, no feeling would compare to the sheer joy that would come when 100,000 spectators inside the stadium announced her entry with rapturous applause and a deafening ovation.  Just for a moment, put yourself in Jane Saville’s racewalking shoes.  While your feet are in agonising pain and your shoes squelch with sweat, could anything remotely approach this as the closest thing to heaven on earth you could be blessed with?  Imagine, then, what went through Saville’s mind as an official raised a red flag to disqualify her from the event for allowing one of her feet to lose contact with the ground for a third time.  At the very entrance to the stadium, the gold medal waiting for her, Jane Saville’s dreams unravelled.

 Just like Mary Decker, Jane Saville collapsed in tears.  Just like Decker, her initial response to this tragedy was couched in angry terms.  Asked if she needed anything, Saville requested “a gun to shoot myself”.

 There was a critical difference in the response of these two talented women, however.  For Decker, blame lay with Zola Budd.  For Saville, blame lay with herself.  She didn’t blame the racewalking judges whose judgements about what does and does not constitute correct walking technique can often be questioned.  She didn’t blame fate.  She didn’t blame bad luck.  She didn’t blame her coach or her colleagues.  She accepted responsibility.

 In taking ownership, Saville preceded to quickly move beyond blame and torment by accepting that the vagaries of racewalking make this experience far more common than it might be in other sports.  Not only did she do this, she returned to the sport with a new view of herself, deciding to take a more relaxed view of life’s ups and downs than she had until that time.  Armed with a healthier outlook, not only did she win a bronze medal at Athens 2004, she expressed a genuine sense of gratitude and joy when she was able to win a medal at the historic home of the Olympics.  In this, she had come full circle, since Jane Saville’s life-embracing spirit and energy personify the true spirit of the Games.

 Today, Jane Saville is coaching the young and not-so-young to enjoy walking and, if they desire it, to pursue their walking dreams.  She is doing it with the same desire to make a contribution and to help others that she had when my wife and I sat with her at an Olympics fundraising dinner a decade ago.  While relatively unknown in a sport often thought of as the poor cousin of athletics events, Jane Saville enthused about her ambassadorial role and responsibility to draw the attention of local communities to the 2000 Olympic Games.  She was friendly, confident, and without ego.

 Jane Saville is a walking demonstration of the importance of taking ownership of our lives and, specifically, of our dreams.  When we assume ownership in the same spirit of humility that has given Jane Saville a rich life founded on what is rather than what might have been or what might be, we give ourselves the ability to travel with our dreams over the sandhills and deserts over which they must proceed if they are to have any substance and any staying power.

 If we can take true ownership of our dreams, we may just achieve the authenticity of life that is worth far more than an Olympic gold medal.  Reflect, for a moment, on the words of Jane Saville’s first school teacher,

 Dear Jane

 I have watched your career with the greatest pride and joy.  I remember you starting school and how you lapped up the daily exercises our class did every morning.  Part of me has always hoped that those exercises may have been the start of your stellar career.  You were Little Miss Serious in kindergarten and one of the students I have always remembered.

 At every major games I have watched you, cried with you, and rejoiced with you.  Congratulations on everything you have achieved.  You have made this teacher very proud.

 Jenny Sinclair[i]

 Do you think that Mary Decker receives letters like this?