ABSTRACT
On March 23, 1984, teenage Afrikaner running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg, bound for Britain. Through the maneuverings of the London-based Daily Mail newspaper, Budd fled apartheid South Africa for the opportunity to compete on the international stage under the representative colors of Great Britain. The Daily Mail’s ploy to secure unfettered access to Budd and to exploit her story for commercial gain thrust the shy seventeen-year-old into the eye of a global media storm. This chapter seeks to examine international media responses to the Zola Budd affair, from her intial entry into Britain and the mass anti-apartheid protests that lined her pre-Olympic qualification to her controversial appearance under the colors of the Union Jack at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
