Don't Count Her Out

As she stood on the steamy track at Columbia University's Wien Stadium last Saturday afternoon, awaiting the start of the women's 800 meters in the New York Games, Mary Slaney stared into the wind and the sun and the glare of her own expectations. "If I don't get under 2:00," she said, "I'm going to be disappointed."

Slaney hadn't run the 800 outdoors in six years, and you would have thought that the last thing she needed was to put additional pressure on herself. Whatever else it may turn out to be—tragedy, drama, comedy, soap opera, farce—her career has already been an epic, a trip so long and strange and fraught with hard luck that it could almost be broken down into periods, like Italian art or English literature.

Slaney blew onto the athletic stage 18 years ago, a 98-pound whirlwind of ponytails, braces and flying batons. She ranked fourth in the world at 800 meters in 1973, the year she turned 15, and the next winter she set a world indoor record for the distance. People swore she would burn herself out. Put your money on the sun to do so first.

"I've always got such high expectations for myself," says Slaney. "I'm aware of them, but I can't relax them."

Those singular expectations have been both blessing and curse to her. Slaney's best year was 1983. She won a 1,500-3,000 double at the first World Championships, in Helsinki, beating a gang of Soviets and leaving one of them literally sprawled on the track in her wake. Slaney was given the Sullivan Award as the U.S.'s top amateur athlete and was named this magazine's Sportswoman of the Year.

But the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were a nightmare. What lingers horribly in the mind is that photograph, taken as she lay next to the track, her face twisted into a mask of rage and pain after her collision with Zola Budd. Never mind that in 1985 Slaney set the world mile record, or that she still holds U.S. records in the mile, 800, 1,500 and 3,000 meters. Nothing was going to soften the shock of that photo.

More often than not, the demands Slaney makes on herself have broken her down. Slaney's mind, it seems, is stronger than her body. Her Achilles tendons are the weak link. She has lost count of how many lower-leg operations she has had. "I really should work it out, because I'm hearing that question quite a bit lately," she says. "It's somewhere in the teens." Four of those operations have come in the past 2� years, two on her left Achilles, one on her right Achilles and one on her right calf.

This year began promisingly. Though she lost her first race, a 1,500, to Shelly Steely in the Oregon Twilight Meet in Eugene, Ore., Slaney's time of 4:08.51 was her fastest in more than two years. Two weeks later, she won the 1,500 at the Bruce Jenner Classic in San Jose in stunning fashion, pushing from the start and then holding off PattiSue Plumer, last year's top-ranked 3,000 runner, in a tight sprint for the tape. Slaney's time was 4:04.92. Not only was that the fastest 1,500 in the world to that point, but it was also the fastest by an American woman since 1988.

Slaney arrived in New York for the USA/ Mobil Championships in mid-June with high hopes. The top three finishers in each event were to qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo in late August. Because she had missed the last World Championships in 1987 due to—what else?—Achilles surgery, Slaney was especially eager to run in Tokyo.

Instead, she ran smack into a patch of her old bad luck. While warming up for the first round, she got a cramp in her right calf. Taping her leg didn't help and painkillers would have violated the doping rules. Slaney pulled out of the meet in tears. She went home to Eugene and got cortisone injections and acupuncture treatments. She was disappointed with a 4:32.15 mile in Oslo on July 6, but she was encouraged by a second-place finish over 2,000 meters in London on July 12.