The competition was hosted by Brazil on 24 September 1989 in Rio de Janeiro and featured one race only: a 15K run for women.
[1] The race was won by Wang Xiuting of China, who had been runner-up to Ingrid Kristiansen the previous year.
She ran 49:34 minutes to finish ten seconds ahead of the runner-up, teammate Zhong Huandi, with former champion Aurora Cunha of Portugal in third place.
With Wang Huabi in seventh, the Chinese team achieved a championship record-low score of ten points.
Showing the dominance of the race by a handful of nations, a Yekaterina Khramenkova-led Soviet Union also achieved the lowest ever score for third place on 24 points.