Mary Decker

Mary Teresa Slaney (formerly Tabb, née Decker, born August 4, 1958) is an American retired middle-distance runner.

During her career, she won gold medals in the 1500 meters and 3000 meters at the 1983 World Championships and was the world-record holder in the mile, 5000 meters and 10,000 meters.

In total, she set 17 official and unofficial world records, and she was the first woman to break 4:20 for the mile.

Unable to attend the 1972 Olympics as she was too young at 14, Decker, who ran wearing pigtails and at the weight of 89 lbs, won international acclaim in 1973 with a win in the 800 meters at a U.S.-USSR meet in Minsk, beating the reigning Olympic silver medalist Nijolė Sabaitė.

By the end of 1972, Decker was ranked first in the United States and fourth in the world in the 800 meters.

In 1973, she set her first world record, running an indoor mile in 4:40.1.

By 1974, Decker was the world indoor record holder with 2:02.4 for 880 yards, and 2:01.8 for 800 meters.

By the end of 1974, Decker had developed a case of the muscle condition compartment syndrome.

This resulted in a series of injuries that prevented her from competing in the 1976 Summer Olympics because of stress fractures in her lower leg.

In 1978, she underwent an operation to address her compartment syndrome, which kept her out of competition for a period.

After recovering from surgery, she spent two seasons at the University of Colorado at Boulder on a track scholarship.

In 1979, she became the second American woman (the first was Francie Larrieu) to break the 4:30 mile.

Decker was the first woman to break the 4:20 barrier for the mile in 1980 when she ran it in 4:17.55.

However, this time was never ratified by the IAAF.

Decker did not compete at the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics because of the American boycott.

However, she received one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the American athletes.

In 1981, Decker married fellow American distance runner Ron Tabb.

In 1982, under the name Mary Tabb, she ran the mile in 4:18.08, breaking the official record of 4:20.89 by the Lyudmila Veselkova of the USSR, and this time was ratified.

In 1982 Decker-Tabb set six world records at distances ranging from the mile run to 10,000 meters.

She received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

The following year she achieved the "Double Decker," winning both the 1500 meters and 3000 meters events at the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland.

Her history of relatively easy wins in the United States left her tactical abilities suspect in Helsinki, as she chose not to run in close order because so few athletes could keep up with her, a situation that the Soviet runners hoped to use to their advantage.

Her wins against Soviet World Record holders proved a redemption of her competitive guile.

After her double win she won the Jesse Owens Award from USA Track and Field and Sports Illustrated magazine named her Sportsperson of the Year.

The couple divorced in 1983.

Shortly before her World Championship victories, Decker improved her U.S. 1500 meters record to 3:57.12 in Stockholm on July 26, 1983.

She also set 36 U.S. national records at distances ranging from 800 meters to 10,000 meters, and has held the U.S. record in the 2000 meters and 3000 meters since the early 1980s, while her 1500 meters record stood for 32 years and her mile record stood for 38 years.

In 2003, she was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Decker was born in Bunnvale, New Jersey.

A decade later, her family moved to Garden Grove in Southern California, where Decker started running.

A year later at the age of 11, she won her first local competition.

She joined her school athletics club and a local track club and completely immersed herself in running.

At age 12, she completed a marathon and four middle- and long-distance races in one week, ending the week with an appendectomy operation.

In her early teens, Decker was already recognized as a world-class runner.

This record stood for 32 years until Shannon Rowbury ran 3:56.29 on July 17, 2015.

Decker was heavily favored to win a gold medal in the 3000 meters run at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

In the final, barefoot runner Zola Budd, representing Great Britain, had been running even with Decker for three laps and then moved ahead.

In an attempt to place pressure on Budd, Decker remained close by in a crowded space.

However, Decker collided with Budd and fell to the curb, injuring her hip, and she did not finish the race, which was won by Maricica Puică of Romania (Budd finished seventh).

Decker was carried from the track in tears by her boyfriend (and later husband), British discus thrower Richard Slaney.