Zola Budd will run as member of British team

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 10

Zola Budd will run as member of British team

NZPA London Auckland’s world crosscountry championships will go ahead as planned next month with Zola Budd running, an international athletics official said after meeting the New Zealand Foreign Minister, Mr Marshall, in London yesterday. Mr John Holt, secretary of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, said the South Africanborn Budd would compete “under international rules” as a member of the British team. The Government has said Budd is not welcome in New Zealand and protests are • expected in Auckland because she spends most of her time in South Africa. Anti-apartheid demonstrators say the 21-year-old, twice world champion, uses her British passport as a “flag of convenience.” Mr Marshall met Mr Holt and a British Ama-

teur Athletic Board representative, Mr Mike Farrell, at his London hotel in the first appointment of a European trip. Mr Holt said Mr Marshall had delivered a strong expression of his Government’s anti-apart-heid views. The Minister had referred to the 1976 Montreal Olympic boycott caused by an All Black rugby tour of South Africa and the controversy sur- , rounding the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand, he said. “It was a very helpful meeting. The Minister put the point of view of the New Zealand Government, we put the point of view of international sport and there was total comprehension on both sides.” Mr Holt said that there was no change in the stance taken by both sides and Budd would compete as already decided by the I.A.A.F. — which organises the championships