Maricica PUICA

The Olympic career of Maricica Puica, which culminated triumphantly in Los Angeles in 1984, started humbly enough when she was eliminated in the heats of the 1500m at Montreal in 1976. However, Puica quickly improved to international class, and in 1977, she finished second in the 3000m at the European Cup in Helsinki behind world record holder Lyudmila Bragina (Soviet Union). In the European Championships at Prague in 1978, Puica finished fourth in the 3000m in a personal best time of 8min 40.94sec. As well, Maricica finished 11th in the 1500m final at Prague. In 1979, Puica finished second in the 3000m at the European Cup in Turin, repeating her performance in the same competition two years earlier.

It was clearly obvious that Maricica was much more suited to the 3000m than the shorter events, but in the Olympic Games at Moscow in 1980, she was restricted to competing in the 1500m, as it was the longest event on the women's program that year. Nevertheless, she qualified for the 1500m final at Moscow, where she finished 7th in 4min 01.3sec. One of Maricica's better years was 1982, starting with her silver medal at the European Indoor Championships in early March. Later that month, in Rome, she amply demonstrated her athletic versatility by winning the international cross-country title. On 9 September, Puica contested the 3000m final at the European Championships in Athens. Maricica allowed others to set the pace in the early stages (see photo above, No. 685), before eventually outlasting most of her rivals to win the silver medal.

Puica followed that medal two days later with a close fourth-place finish in the 1500m final. Only five days later, at Rieti, Puica broke American Mary Decker's 1 mile world record, setting a new mark of 4min 17.44sec. (Ron Casey) 

Although she had competed in athletics from an early age, it wasn't until Maricica Puica reached her thirties that she emerged as an athlete of international class. One of her better years was in 1982, where at the age of 32, she finished second in the 3000m and fourth in the 1500m at the European Championships, and set a new world record in the mile. Following these successes, Puica missed most of the 1983 season due to injury, and thus she was unable to compete at the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki where Mary Decker (USA) won the 1500m/3000m double. This made Decker the hometown favourite for the 3000m at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

The logical co-favourite was Puica who had recorded the season's fastest time amongst those athletes competing at Los Angeles of 8min 33.57sec, set at the national championships in Bucharest on 10 July. However, the media seemed to ignore Puica, and made more hype about the chances of South African born Zola Budd, although this was largely due to the controversy surrounding her quickly acquired British citizenship. As a result, the 3000m final at the Los Angeles Olympics on 10 August was touted as a match between Decker and Budd, and the race is now remembered for the physical contact that occurred between these two athletes, which resulted in Decker falling to the ground and failing to finish the race. Lost in the resultant controversy was the fact that Puica won (see photo above) the gold medal by over three seconds in 8min 35.96sec.

Puica also had the season's best time of 3min 57.22sec amongst the competitors at Los Angeles in the 1500m, and in the final held on the day following the 3000m final, Maricica gained her second Olympic medal when she finished third. (Ron Casey)

The highlight of Maricica Puica's career was when she won the gold medal in the 3000m at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, her victory was overshadowed by the controversy raised over the infamous tripping incident between Zola Budd (Great Britain) and crowd favourite Mary Decker (USA). The following year, the three protagonists met in a mile race in Zurich, where both Puica and Decker broke Puica's world record, but unfortunately for Maricica, it was Decker who was first to finish. On 11 July 1986, at the Peugeot Games in London (Crystal Palace), Puica set a new 2000m world record of 5min 28.69sec.

Seven weeks later, on 28 August, Puica competed in the 3000m final at the European Championships in Stuttgart. In the final at Stuttgart, Zola Budd had held the lead until just before the start of the last lap, when Olga Bondarenko (Soviet Union) and Puica (see photo above. No. 644 © G.H. 28 August 86.) swept past her and made their sprint for home. Maricica was unable to catch Bondarenko, but she comfortably won the silver medal in 8min 35.92sec. Three days later, Puica competed in the 1500m final, where she finished in fifth place. The following year, Puica contested the 3000m at the World Indoor Championships in Indianapolis on 7 March, where she won the bronze medal behind Tatyana Samolenko (Soviet Union) and Bondarenko.

Unlike her practice in previous major international championships, in which she contested the 1500m/3000m double, Puica only contested the 3000m at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where she finished a close second to Samolenko in 8min 39.45sec. In her fourth and last Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, Puica reaggravated a calf injury during her heat of the 3000m and pulled out with 200m remaining. (Ron Casey)