Decker Wins Race, Crowd : She Defeats Wysocki, Sets World Record

Rising from the anguish of her controversial collision with Zola Budd in last summer’s Olympics and rising above Ruth Wysocki’s recent criticism, Mary Decker returned spectacularly Friday night.

Supported enthusiastically by a sellout Sports Arena crowd of 13,702, Decker routed Wysocki and four others in winning the Sunkist Invitational’s 2,000-meter run and establishing her seventh world indoor record.

Decker led from the start, finished more than 11 seconds ahead of runner-up Wysocki and broke the 5:43.30 world mark of the Soviet Union’s Yekaterina Podkopaeva by almost nine seconds with a time of 5:34.52.

The crowd, which had given Wysocki a slightly warmer reception during the introductions, was on its feet at the end, spiritedly cheering Decker, who waved her right arm in response.

“It’s time to forget and time to move on,” Decker said later. She alluded to the collision with Budd that knocked her out of the Olympic 3,000 meters and stirred a controversy that was still being talked about last week when Wysocki called Decker a crybaby and said she owed Budd an apology.

Decker responded by saying that it was an uninformed Wysocki who should apologize to her and that she would use Wysocki’s comments to motivate her in the Sunkist.

Friday night, however, Decker insisted she did not have Wysocki’s remarks in mind as she ran, nor did she carry the memory of the Budd incident.

She displayed some testiness after repeated questioning on both subjects but generally remained patient and in control while surrounded and hounded by members of the media.

She said that this represented her first race as Mary Slaney (she recently married British discus thrower Richard Slaney) and that she only wanted to run a personal best (which translated to a world record), re-establishing her dominance at the start of a new year.

“I can’t wait to race next week and the week after,” she said. “I’ve broken the ice for the competitive season, and it’s full speed ahead.

“The members of the media will call it my comeback, but I don’t consider it that. All I know is that I wanted to win.”

Told that Wysocki had just said that she had expected Decker to set a world record, Decker said, “How could she know what I was planning to do? I hadn’t made it public.”

The headlined confrontation between lifelong rivals Decker and Wysocki, who was making only her second indoor appearance, helped produce the large crowd but was not the meet’s only highlight.

--Chairman of the Boards Eamonn Coghlan, sidelined all of 1984 with a stress fracture in his right leg, won for the second time in as many starts this month, holding off Steve Scott at the wire to take the mile in 3:56.34. Scott, who has now run 89 sub-4-minute miles, was timed in 3:56.35, while John Walker, who is the all-time leader with 95 sub-4-minute miles, was third in 3:57.56.

--Jim Howard of the Pacific Coast Club won the high jump at 7-6 1/2, then missed in three attempts at 7-8, higher than any American has ever jumped indoors.

--Olympian Earl Bell of the Pacific Coast Club won the pole vault at 18-4. Billy Olson also did 18-4 but Bell won on the basis of fewer misses.

--Brandon Richards, the son of Rev. Bob Richards and a student at San Marcos High in Santa Barbara, finished seventh at 17-6, matching the second best indoor vault ever by a prep.

--Greg Foster, who said he almost came to blows with a security man who refused to let him on the track five minutes before his first race, won both the 50- and 60-yard high hurdles.

Foster, coming back from a disappointing second to Roger Kingdom in the 110-meter high hurdles during last summer’s Olympics, won the 50 hurdles in 5.96, the second fastest time ever indoors. The world record of 5.92 is held by Foster’s former nemesis, Renaldo Nehemiah.

“Right now,” Foster said after winning the 60 hurdles in 7.11, “I’m just trying to break as many world records as I can. That’s all I have to shoot for considering I won’t decide on the ’88 Olympics until we get closer and I see how I’m running.”

--Alice Brown, second to Evelyn Ashford in the women’s Olympic 100-meter dash and a member of the gold medal 400-meter relay team, won the women’s 60-yard dash in 6.72.

Brown, who runs for the World Class Track Club and attends Cal State Northridge, hopes to emerge from Ashford’s shadows as Ashford, an expectant mother, takes the winter off.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to stay in training through the ’88 Olympics,” Brown said. “It depends on how I do each year. I’m concentrating right now on breaking some world records--the 100 outdoors and the 60 indoors. I’d like to turn it around and give Evelyn something to shoot for.”

--Valerie Brisco-Hooks, who won three gold medals in the Olympics, set a meet record of 53.41 in easily winning the women’s 440-yard dash. Brisco-Hooks said her next goal is a world indoor record in the 400 meters, which she will shoot for next week in Albuquerque.

--Veteran Tony Darden held off the late charge of Jamaican Olympian Bert Cameron to win the men’s 500 in 57 flat.

--Olympian Johnny Gray of the Santa Monica Track Club led all the way in narrowly beating Olympian Earl Jones in the 880. Gray was timed in 1:49.

--Jack Buckner of Great Britain upset U.S. Olympian Doug Padilla in winning the two-mile in 8:28.76.