Wysocki’s Trial Run : She Will Go for Olympics at 35 After Three-Year Suspension

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. governing body of track and field. Wysocki, a 1984 Olympian at 800 and 1,500 meters, was given a four-year suspension.

After three years of appeals and hearings, Wysocki, who stunned favored Mary Decker by winning the 1,500 in the 1984 U.S. Olympic trials, became the first athlete to win reinstatement when TAC’s executive committee voted last November to end her suspension on Jan. 1.

“If I had to do it again, I’d sit back and ask a few more questions,” said Wysocki, 35, of Canyon Lake.

Because of its apartheid policy--since dropped--South Africa was banned from the Olympics in 1964, was expelled from the International Olympic Committee in 1970 and the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which oversees world track and field, in 1976.

The IAAF voted in January to postpone South Africa’s readmittance until its three governing bodies of track and field unite. The subject was not addressed at the IAAF’s meeting in March. In the meantime, TAC and IAAF rules continue to prohibit athletes from competing in South Africa.

“I knew there was a possibility of suspension,” Wysocki said of the ’88 trip. “But in this particular case, the rules were vague. It wasn’t black and white like drug rules--that if you did this, this will happen. It was kind of a gray area. If you asked 10 people on the street at that time, you would get eight different answers.”

Wysocki’s application for reinstatement was rejected in hearings in 1989 and 1990 before it was accepted and her suspension was overturned.

Pole vaulter Anthony Curran and shotputter Gregg Tafralis, who competed in another series of meets in South Africa in 1989, were also recently reinstated. Curran became eligible Jan. 2 and Tafralis can resume competing in April.

“It’s a relief,” said Wysocki, who says the suspensions were too severe when compared to the two-year suspension of sprinter Ben Johnson for steroid use, and the penalties other drug users have drawn.

“There was so much red tape because I was the first and they were concerned about future appeals,” she said. “I had to deal with so many different boards and personnel, it’s hard to remember all of them. I needed a scorebook.”

Most of the athletes who went to South Africa received $10,000 to $35,000 a meet, plus bonuses for breaking South African records. Wysocki said, however, that money was not her main reason for going.

“I had to see the whole thing for myself,” she said. “I saw some good things. There were problems, but they were not as widespread as I thought. It was a statement by going there that it was not fair, not allowing (South Africans) to compete. Governments shouldn’t have control of what we do as athletes because it has no effect on them.”

Wysocki, however, says that the tour did have a positive effect on South African athletes.

“There were girls who had competed only against each other for nine years,” Wysocki said. “It’s like the Rams playing the Raiders every week. After a while, it gets pretty boring. The athletes were appreciative to see some new blood. Everybody was really happy and thankful.”

Before the trip, Wysocki, had planned on competing at least through 1989 and did not expect to be suspended for longer than a year. The four-year suspension hit her hard.

“I kept up hope for a while, but then retirement started to become appealing,” Wysocki said. “I used to read results of a meet and think that ‘I could have done that.’ Other times, I’d go to a meet and see the runners and how nerve-racking it was. That was something I didn’t miss.”

Wysocki, the mother of an 18-month-old son, coached cross-country at Temecula Valley High last fall.

In her first competition since her reinstatement, Wysocki placed fifth, in 35 minutes 15 seconds, in the Redondo Beach Super Bowl Sunday 10K Jan. 26.

“I had no idea where I was physically and was trying not to expect too much,” she said. “I’m happy where I’m at and how my training is going.”

She was recently reunited with longtime coach Vince O’Boyle, track and field coach at UC Irvine, in preparation for the Olympic trials in June. She will focus on the 1,500 and 3,000 meters. Wysocki finished fourth and sixth in those events in the 1988 trials.

“We’re going to crank it up one more time and try to put together one more campaign,” said O’Boyle, Wysocki’s coach of 18 years.

“I think everybody has written her off and isn’t expecting much. What she ran (at Redondo Beach) was not much different than she ran there in 1984. It gives me a good idea that she is in pretty good shape.”

Wysocki had come out of a three-year retirement six months before the 1984 trials. In the 1,500 final, she knocked more than 12 seconds off her personal best time and upset Decker in 4:00.18. It was Decker’s first defeat by an American in five years.

Wysocki’s time is second on the all-time U.S. list. She had not run faster than 4:16.0 before 1984.

As Ruth Kleinasser, an age-group champion from Azusa, she had raced Decker since she was 12. As Ruth Caldwell, Wysocki had beaten Decker in the 800 to win in the 1978 national championships.

Wysocki took most of 1980 off because of the U.S. Olympic boycott and a nagging foot injury.

She resumed training with renewed determination the next year, increasing her usual mileage from 50 to 90 miles a week, until her right knee gave out.

“I was told that the inside of your knee should look like an elephant’s tusk,” Wysocki said. “Mine looked like crab meat. It was so chewed up, they told me there was nothing I could do but let Mother Nature do her work.”

Wysocki was unable to exercise for eight months, during which her first marriage fell apart. She said there were other problems, but that any chance for the marriage continuing ended with her injury.

After her knee had healed, she was content to work as a full-time secretary at an electronics firm and run in weekend road races.

“When I got hurt, I was in the best shape of my life,” Wysocki said. “I lost my desire to compete because I didn’t want to work so hard and lose it all. I was just happy I wasn’t going to be a couch potato for the rest of my life.”

In 1982, she married Tom Wysocki, who had finished sixth at 10,000 meters in the 1980 trials and was a contender to make the team in 1984 until an injury sidelined him.

Toward the end of 1983, Tom suggested that Ruth should return to track to increase the couple’s marketability among road race promoters, who would often pay Tom’s expenses but were unwilling to pay his wife’s.

“I told him he was crazy,” Wysocki said. “Then one night, I sat down and looked at the list of qualifying times and they weren’t much quicker than 1976. I said, ‘What the heck.’ It was a perk to go along and travel.”

Tom still competes locally and this time around, Ruth required little persuasion to try another comeback.

“It was like, ‘I worked this hard to be reinstated, I might as well do something with it,”’ she said. “It does not hit my hot buttons to think about just settling for being at the trials and losing in the first round, but I’m not going to get suicidal if I don’t make the Olympic team.”

Wysocki and O’Boyle plan to gradually ease into high-intensity workouts and hope to attain automatic trials-qualifying marks of 4:15 for the 1,500 and 9:03 for the 3,000 by the end of April.

“She literally walked away from competition and hasn’t done any real structured training,” O’Boyle said.

“There will be some crucial times when we get into April to find some competitive races to get a qualifying time. It will be real interesting to see how it goes. She’s excited and I am too.”

O’Boyle doesn’t think age is a factor and neither does Wysocki, who does not expect difficulty making it to the trials.

“I don’t think that I’m physically incapable,” she said.

“I think my experience will be advantageous. If I thought I would have trouble (qualifying), it would not be worth it for me to go for it.”