Ruth Wysocki

Ruth Wysocki, 34, reinstated by The Athletics Congress after a two-year suspension for competing in South Africa, will make her comeback debut in the Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K on Jan. 26.

Ruth Wysocki didn't let her eyes wander from the task at hand Sunday. Despite the emotional atmosphere at the Orange County Race for the Cure in Newport Beach, the 42-year-old Sun City resident kept her focus on the course and won the women's 5K for the first time in eight tries. "I was introduced to this race by a friend who is a cancer survivor," Wysocki said. "When she first told me about it, I was like, 'Oh great, another race for another charity.'

Ruth Wysocki, a veteran middle-distance runner who has been serving a suspension for participating in three unsanctioned meets in South Africa in 1988, will compete today for the first time since her suspension was lifted by the The Athletics Congress' Executive Committee after three years of appeals. Wysocki, 34, will join the field for the Redondo Super Bowl Sunday 10K run.

Nicole Woodward of Portland, Ore., fought off the early-morning heat and made up a 20-yard gap between her and the front-runners to win the sixth annual Orange County 5K Race for the Cure Sunday at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Woodward, 26, stayed with the top four runners through the first mile of the race, but was then content to fall back with Colorado's Valerie Vaughan, while Ruth Wysocki and Albuquerque's Shelly Steely battled for the lead.

Several of the nation's better distance runners will challenge favored Ruth and Tom Wysocki in the Foot Locker Partners national championship race on Nov. 2 at 8 a.m. at Griffith Park. The usual race is open to any two-person team. The Wysockis won the overall title in 1983, a year before Ruth Wysocki gained fame by defeating Mark Decker in the 1,500-meter Olympic trials. Wysocki made the Olympic team in both the 1,500 and 800 events. Tom Wysocki is one of the better 10K runners in the country.

Kim Gallagher, a 1984 Olympic silver medalist, and Ruth Wysocki, a 1984 Olympian, will compete in the Toyota/ASICS women's track and field invitational Saturday at UC Irvine. Gallagher, a member of the Los Angeles Track Club, and Wysocki, of the Brooks Track Club, are expected to lead the 1,500-meter race, which begins at 12:45 p.m. Jill Harrington and Buffy Rabbitt, UC Irvine's middle-distance leaders, will compete in the 800- and 1,500-meter races.

Veteran world-class middle-distance runner Steve Scott has joined Ruth Wysocki in criticizing Mary Decker, saying Decker is " . . . a baby and she's spoiled." Scott's comments came in the wake of Wysocki's blast at Decker for her conduct during the Olympics. Wysocki told reporters Tuesday that most athletes believed Decker behaved badly in the Olympic 3,000 meters, where she collided with Zola Budd and both runners fell. Decker was injured and did not finish the race. Budd finished seventh.

Daley Thompson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and Ruth Wysocki, a 1984 U.S. Olympian, are two of the many world-class athletes entered in this weekend's two-day Irvine Invitational at UC Irvine. Today's women's division begins with field events at 10 a.m., and the first running event--the 400-meter relay--is slated for noon. Sunday's men's division also starts with field events at 10 a.m., with the 3,000-meter steeplechase at noon.

Ruth Wysocki said at a track luncheon Tuesday that Mary Decker was revealed to the public as the person she really is in the Olympic Games here last summer. In the most controversial incident of the Olympics, Decker, the American favorite, collided with South African-born Zola Budd, running for Britain, in the 3,000 meters. Decker went down, fell into the infield injured, and was unable to continue the race. Later, she bitterly blamed Budd for the collision.

Ruth Wysocki could see the clock well before she spotted the finish line. The world record in the women's elite masters division appeared within reach, and the 40-year-old Olympian from Canyon Lake was in good position to break it. When Wysocki completed Saturday's 13th annual Bastille Day 8K masters event in 26:19 on the fairly flat course in Newport Beach, she had bettered Priscilla Welch's eight-year-old record by seven seconds. "I was kind of hoping for a world record," Wysocki said.

With 150 meters to run in the 1,500-meter semifinals at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Friday, her third comeback apparently coming to an abrupt end, 39-year-old Ruth Wysocki let her mind wander. She began thinking about returning home and having another child. As it turned out, her fourth retirement was her shortest.

All one had to do to see the clock turning back was watch a couple of veterans of the 1984 Summer Olympics run Saturday night at the Occidental Invitational. Johnny Gray, 35, and Ruth Wysocki, 39, set meet records, Gray running the third-fastest time (1:44.66) in the world this year in the 800 meters and Wysocki running the fourth-fastest time (4:07.6) in the 1,500.

Ruth Wysocki called it a step into the unknown. Wysocki, a world-class middle-distance runner, had run hundreds of races in faraway places without incident. But in the fall of 1988, Wysocki and 16 other athletes and coaches participated in three unsanctioned meets in South Africa, risking lifetime suspensions by defying an international ban. When they returned to the United States, they were slapped with suspensions ranging from two to 12 years by The Athletics Congress, the U.S.

Ruth Wysocki, a veteran middle-distance runner who has been serving a suspension for participating in three unsanctioned meets in South Africa in 1988, will compete today for the first time since her suspension was lifted by the The Athletics Congress' Executive Committee after three years of appeals. Wysocki, 34, will join the field for the Redondo Super Bowl Sunday 10K run.

Ruth Wysocki, 34, reinstated by The Athletics Congress after a two-year suspension for competing in South Africa, will make her comeback debut in the Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K on Jan. 26.

The next time the Dodgers take an 11-1 or 7-0 lead on a Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, the crowd should start chanting, "Dee-fense, dee-fense." . . . Lousy fielding, combined with poor pitching, meant come-from-way-ahead defeats for the Dodgers against Philadelphia and Houston and most likely cost them whatever chance they had to win the National League West championship. . . . Of course, to err is nothing new for the Dodgers.