Mystery Runner Turns Spotlight Over to Ditz

Here it was. Nancy Ditz’s chance to step out from behind a curtain of obscurity and say, “Hello, I was America’s second-fastest women’s marathoner in 1985.”

Joan Benoit Samuelson, Olympic marathon champion, former world-record holder and household name, was America’s fastest in the marathon last year. Samuelson’s name has marquee value, while Ditz’s is about as familiar as the name of the current Bolivian president.

In fact, Ditz, from Woodside, Calif., is such an unknown that few know the correct pronunciation of her last name (it’s Deetz).

But she is fast. She ran 2:31:36 in the California International Marathon in Sacramento in December, second to Samuelson’s 2:21:21 at Chicago in October.

Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon was to be her coming out party, her chance to escape the lengthy shadow of Samuelson, not to mention winning the first-place prize of $10,000 and a car.

Yet, for a time, it appeared she was cast as second-fiddle again.

Through the first 19 miles Sunday, Ditz was upstaged by an unknown. A woman in a green singlet without an official race bib number led the race up to that point. Ditz knew she was second and that the woman ahead of her was an unofficial runner.

“I was very nervous about her,” Ditz said. “It was really distracting. I wanted to pass her. I could see her along the course. It was a little upsetting.

“If it had been a runner with a number I wouldn’t have worried about it.”

After leading for about 18 1/2 miles, the mystery woman dropped out.

Ditz went on to win the race in 2:36:27. Former world record-holder Christa Vahlensieck of West Germany was second and Magda Ilands of Belgium finished third.

“I passed her when she stopped to tie her shoe at about 19 miles,” Ditz said of the mystery woman.

So who was she?

A relative called Channel 13, which was televising the race, and identified her as Sylvia Mosqueda.

The caller also said Mosqueda competed on the East L.A. College cross-country team. Mosqueda did win the Run Across Los Angeles 10-mile race in December, beating Olympian Ruth Wysocki.

This sort of thing has happened before.

‘Bandits’ as they are called, are the nightmare of race directors around the world. They run, but do not register in the race. Seldom are they factors as Mosqueda was Sunday.

There have been serious cases, however.

Who could forget the twisted tale of Rosie Ruiz at the 1980 Boston Marathon?

She claimed she had run the entire distance, when in fact it was determined that she had not, that she had jumped in a few miles from the finish.

The real winner, Jacqueline Gareau of Canada, was not given the winner’s traditional laurel wreath until eight days later, after Ruiz had been exposed.

Then there was the shock of Frank Shorter at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany, when a man named Norbert Sudhous joined the race a few minutes in front of Shorter. He circled the track ahead of Shorter, stealing his applause.

Security guards finally dragged the man off as Shorter began his final tour of the track. Shorter’s win, which many believe started the running boom in this country, was the first Olympic marathon victory by an American since Johnny Hayes did it in 1908.

Mosqueda was about the only problem Ditz encountered in the race. Yet her time was slower than the sub-2:30 clocking she hoped for.

The warm, sunny weather scared Ditz and she slowed considerably after passing Mosqueda, giving up a fast time for the sure victory.

She had trouble with the heat at last year’s World Marathon Championships in Hiroshima, Japan, and played it conservatively in the late going Sunday.

Her conservative style was dictated solely by her desire to win. And to draw some attention to her running ability.

“That’s part of the reason I’m running Los Angeles,” Ditz said earlier in the week. “It’s a media center. Go ask three people who won the Chicago Marathon. I don’t think they can tell you.”

But, as Ditz found out, even winning was not enough to get all the attention. After the race, what most people wanted to know about was the mystery runner, not the winner.