It will take a minimum of five years for six members of Eritrea's World Cross-country Championship team to gain UK passports and qualify to represent Britain. The process was not always so long. Twenty-four years ago this month, Zola Budd had a passport processed indecently hastily, within weeks. Months later she raced in the Los Angeles Olympics, infamously but accidentally tripping home heroine Mary Slaney.

It will take a minimum of five years for six members of Eritrea's World Cross-country Championship team to gain UK passports and qualify to represent Britain. The process was not always so long. Twenty-four years ago this month, Zola Budd had a passport processed indecently hastily, within weeks. Months later she raced in the Los Angeles Olympics, infamously but accidentally tripping home heroine Mary Slaney.

Barefoot, elfin Budd re-wrote the UK record books, set a world best at 5000 metres, and won two world cross-country titles for Britain, but 20 years ago this week it was all over. She fled home, said to be on the brink of suicide.

She had arrived as a pawn in a tabloid circulation war, and left as a pawn in a political one.

She had set a world best at 5000m in South Africa, but as the Republic had been banned from international sport, it would not be ratified.

The Daily Mail discovered she had a Scottish great grandmother and English grandfather and helped promote her UK nationality and fast-track a passport. Now 41, her life might have been very different had she taken a public stance then against apartheid. She declined to do so, but subsequently did, outspokenly, in her autobiography.

She could not escape the apartheid question. She caused a TV black out of an event in Edinburgh (the city tried to show political slogans denouncing apartheid) in 1985. Only her sidestep prevented a demonstrator flooring her on the Meadowbank track where she won the mile, in what's still the fastest time by a woman in Scotland.

Years later, she told me she'd never even heard of Nelson Mandela at that time, adding: "Aids is doing far more damage in South Africa than apartheid ever did."

She was savaged at her first public interview after the passport of convenience. Opening question (The Times): "Zola, will you now denounce apartheid?"

Her Afrikaaner coach, Pieter Labuschagne, interrupts: "That's a political question. Zola knows nothing about politics."

The Herald: "Is it not the case that you were studying politics at Stellenbosch last year?"

Chaos, and end of interview.

Budd broke the world 5k record in 1985, but withdrew from England's Commonwealth team a year later . . . too late to prevent a black boycott in Edinburgh. Then, in 1988, she was alleged to have raced on a visit to South Africa (she had merely been a spectator). However, the world athletics body suspended her, and she did not race for several years.

She completed a university degree (in psychology), went on to study forensics, and appeared happy. The Republic was readmitted to world sport and she ran for them at the 1992 Olympics, but missed the final. However, domestic life was fraught.

Her parents divorced and her father was murdered by his gay lover. She married Mike Pieterse, and had three children, including twins. But in 2006, Mike ran off with a former Mrs Universe, Pinkie Pelser. Zola sued for divorce, but the couple are now reconciled. They had to get a court order to evict the twice-divorced mother of two from the house Mike had given her. Pinkie was arrested for stealing Mike's gun, and loosing off shots.

Zola's last big-race appearance was the 2003 London Marathon. She dropped out six miles from the finish as Paula Radcliffe broke the word record.