Her Odyssey Is Undone by a Detail : Track and field: Romania’s Ivan fails in bid to break indoor record. She wore wrong kind of shoes.

To have traveled thousands of miles, lived through a revolution, and be undone by a pair of shoes and a piece of wood.

That was the result of Paula Ivan’s attempt to break the world indoor mile record Friday night at the Sunkist Invitational track meet.

Call it equipment failure. Call it hard knocks on wood. By any term, Ivan’s failure to finish the race in which $100,000 was offered for the record, was disappointing.

In keeping with the entire evening.

Abdi Bile’s attempt to set a mile record in the men’s race fell flat--the dependable Steve Scott won in a sluggish time, 4 minutes 1.29 seconds. Bile was fifth. A handful of meet records were set, but in unusual and never-before-run events. Even the usual indoor-track circus atmosphere was absent. The tiny crowd at the Sports Arena was announced at 9,250 but gave the appearance of being closer to 6,000.

Save most of the disappointment for Ivan, however. The world record-holder at the outdoor mile, Ivan, teammate Violeta Beclea and coach Maricica Puica survived Romania’s bloody revolution and had been elated when their application to compete here was approved after months of negotiations.

But when Ivan stepped onto the track Friday night, she wasn’t on her best footing. Ivan had brought running spikes designed for outdoor competition, in which the shoe’s hard plastic foresole grips a rubberized track. Indoors, the spikes skate on the hardwood.

Ivan had trouble with the banked turns, down which she kept sliding to the wood curbing. She made it 500 meters before she stepped hard on the curb and retreated to the infield.

Ivan was taken to a hospital Friday night for X-rays to her left foot.

PattiSue Plumer, formerly of Stanford, was thrust into the lead. She ran strongly to win in 4:33.01. Beclea overtook Alisa Harvey in the final yards to finish second. Her time was 4:33.46 and Harvey’s was 4:33.62.

Plumer, who says she relishes the caprice of indoor track, said she saw Ivan’s trouble as soon as she glimpsed her shoes.

“This is an old track, really slippery,� she said. “She had problems right from the start.� The orange and yellow track used here was first put down in 1962 but was last refinished in 1981.

Scott was running here then. And winning races. Scott, who has 10 times been ranked No. 1 in the United States at 1,500 meters, is wise enough to know that, despite the allure of $100,000, Eamonn Coghlan’s record of 3:49.78 was not reachable.

“People lose sight of what it takes to run a 3:49 mile,� Scott said. “Only one person has done that indoors. It comes too early in the year. People aren’t ready to run that fast.�

Scott knew before the race that Bile wasn’t ready. Bile, who is the world champion at 1,500, had trained with Scott this week while he was househunting in San Diego. The Somalian had run one indoor race this season, nothing impressive, and Scott said that result coupled with their training sessions clued him to Bile’s status.

“I never thought Abdi was a factor as far as the record,� Scott said. “I knew I was ready for it.�

Scott took the lead with three laps to go while Bile was in fifth. At that point, Scott said, he just hoped for a sub-4 minute race. It was more substandard than anything else. But it was a victory, and that’s what Scott does, year after year.

There was a near disappointment in the women’s hurdles. Lynda Tolbert of Arizona State overcame a bad start and an even worse finish to win the 50-meter hurdles. Her time of 6.89 was a meet record and the fourth-best ever by an American woman.

The start Tolbert could explain--early season glitches, slow reaction.

The finish, post-finish, really, was something else. As the runners broke the tape at the finish, they ran into a tunnel at the end of the track. Tolbert, last year’s national champion at 100-meter hurdles, was clotheslined by a rope officials used to stop the runners. The rope caught Tolbert around her neck and she snapped backward to the ground.

“I hit my head and I hit my hand,� Tolbert said. “I really don’t have any experience with those ropes. I’ll be ready next time.�

Other events featured well-known faces. Greg Foster won the men’s 50-meter hurdles in 6.45, beating a quick-starting Arthur Blake. Doug Padilla won the 3,000 in 7:47.65, a meet record. Padilla held off a hard-charging Brian Abshire in a race that is always exciting. For his performance, Padilla was named the athlete of the meet.

Diane Dixon surprised herself with her winning time of 53.18 in the 440. She said that after the notoriously taxing race, she felt she could have run another.

Larry Myricks won the long jump in 26-11. Brian Stanton won the men’s high jump at 7-6 1/2, beating Hollis Conway, the holder of the American indoor record. Conway was second at 7-4 1/2.

Only two pole vaulters cleared 18 feet, another disappointment. Thierry Vigneron of France, as colorful as ever, won with a jump of 18-4 1/2. Sergei Bubka’s world indoor record is 19-9 1/4.

One of the meet’s best performances came from Juliana Yendork, a high school junior from Walnut. Yendork set a national high school record in the triple jump with a leap of 42-3. She also set a meet record in winning the long jump at 19-10 1/2.