WORLD SPORTS SCENE : A Loss in Barcelona Inspires Him for ’96

Ron Karnaugh could have walked away from swimming three years ago and still been remembered as a hero of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Karnaugh, considered a favorite in the 200 individual medley in Barcelona, finished sixth, six days after his father, Peter, died suddenly during the opening ceremonies.

Karnaugh fought the pain of his loss and competed, but he considers those Olympics unfulfilling. Within a month after the Barcelona Games, he dedicated himself to competing in the Atlanta Olympics, helped by the encouragement of his neighbors in Maplewood, N.J.

Karnaugh, who is taking a year off from medical school in Newark to train with Coach Terry Stoddard of the Rose Bowl Aquatics swim team in Pasadena, hopes to satisfy his ambition this time.

“It left me hungry,” Karnaugh said over the weekend during the Janet Evans Invitational at USC, where Sunday he won the 200 meter individual medley, defeating 1992 Olympic silver medalist Greg Burgess. “With a tragedy like that, it was very difficult to focus.”

That said, Karnaugh, 6 feet 5, 200 pounds, has stayed in world-class shape while completing three years of medical school. He plans to specialize in orthopedic surgery with an emphasis on sports medicine.

And Karnaugh, who turns 29 next week, hopes to have an Olympic medal on display in his office after he graduates.

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Ruby Fox, who won the silver medal in pistol shooting at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, will not attempt to qualify for the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. Fox, 51, from Parker, Ariz., has been battling vertigo for nearly four months and is being treated with a diuretic that is banned by the U.S. Olympic Committee. As a result, Fox cannot participate in Olympic qualifying events.

“She is very upset by this,” said Fox’s husband, Art. “It’s a shame that trials are held some 12-13 months before the actual Olympics. If they were later, then Ruby would have time.”

It is not the first time that Fox has encountered problems with banned substances. She qualified for the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, but was replaced after testing positive for Estratest, a drug that helped treat an estrogen imbalance. She also was suspended for three months in 1989 after testing positive for another diuretic. Fox said she took the drug to relieve edema in her legs.

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Dede Demet of Colorado Springs, Colo., thinks she gained a big advantage in her attempt to make the U.S. Olympic cycling team when she won the recent Power Bar International Women’s Challenge in Idaho, the best U.S. stage race for women.

Demet had entered the race, which changed its name in recent years to accommodate its sponsor, since she was 17. She had never finished worse than seventh, but against a top-flight field she won on the penultimate stage.

“This is a big confidence builder for me,” Demet said. “It was really a star-studded field.”

Demet, 23, and other elite American riders are now preparing for the 14-day women’s Tour de France, starting July 29.

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The second and last chance for U.S. beach volleyball teams to qualify for the Olympic trials is scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday at Hermosa Beach. Teams from the Association of Volleyball Professionals boycotted the first because they did not like the Olympic selection criteria established by the international volleyball federation but have agreed to participate in this one.

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World Scene Notes

Mike Marsh, the former Hawthorne High and UCLA sprinter who trains in Houston, has established himself as the early favorite in the 100 meters at track and field’s World Championships Aug. 4-13 in Sweden with his victory at Lausanne, Switzerland last week over a field that included the United States’ Dennis Mitchell and Jon Drummond, Great Britain’s Linford Christie and Canada’s Donovan Bailey. Marsh’s time of 9.96 seconds was slightly wind-aided. “I knew I could do it, but I needed the right kind of competition,” he said. “I’m going to do it again and again and again.” . . . Carl Lewis’ last-place in the 200 at that meet was the first time he has finished last since his 100 at the 1981 World Cup.

Fourteen U.S. track and field athletes who finished among the top three in their events at the national championships will not go to Sweden unless they meet international qualifying standards. One is U.S. 1,500-meter champion Paul McMullen. . . . Mark Crear, formerly of USC, was the major disappointment of the national championships, failing to earn a berth on the team for Sweden in the 110-meter hurdles. But he has run well since, recently recording a world-best for this year of 13.02 seconds.

Mark Lenzi, 1992 Olympic gold medalist in three-meter diving, is doing well in his two-month-old comeback. He recently won both springboard events in a meet at Ann Arbor, Mich. . . . Another prominent U.S. diver, Mary Ellen Clark, continues to have difficulty with vertigo. She has tried several treatments, most recently acupuncture. But nothing has enabled her to practice the multiple somersaults and twists necessary to compete this summer. . . . The Diamond Information Center gave swimmer Janet Evans studded earrings, which she said she will wear as good luck charms during the U.S. nationals in Pasadena starting July 31.

* Times staff writers George Dohrmann and Randy Harvey contributed to this story.