SPORTSLETTER August 1997

Los Angeles, August 16, 1997
Vol. 09, No. 04

Dear Reader:

Mountaineering is enjoying a surge in popularity these days. According to the Outdoor Retail Coalition of America (ORCA) roughly 2.7 million Americans consider themselves mountain climbing enthusiasts. Membership in the American Alpine Club has grown 20% annually for the past several years. Expeditions on Mt. Everest, which are becoming as crowded as a Los Angeles freeway, are duly chronicled by mainstream media such as NBC and PBS, which have created Websites to chart their progress. IMAX and PBS' Nova both have documentaries in the works. This growth in climbing's popularity seems undeterred by the high fatality rate associated with the sport. Most notable among the disasters is the May 1996 Everest storm that killed nine climbers in a single day and is the subject of climber/author Jon Krakauer’s current best-seller,Into Thin Air. Just as amazing is the number of people who perish on other mountains. During the first two months of this summer, more than 100 people have died in the Swiss, French and Italian Alps. Just further proof that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Doped or dope? . . . Ukrainian shotputter Aleksandr Bagach had a few moments of false glory as the shot put gold medalist at the recent 1997 World Athletics Championships until he was stripped of his medal and prize money for testing positive for the banned drug ephedrine. Bagach now claims that he is an unwitting victim of Kwik Energy, a product produced by Universal Laboratories of New Brunswick, NJ. Bagach argues he was unaware that Kwik Energy contains the herb ma huang, a natural source of ephedrine.

Bagach's claims to innocent ignorance ring a bit hollow. Ma huang is well-known as a source of ephedrine. Drug Free, the United States Olympic Committee's anti-doping handbook published in 1996, states "ma huang is a plant that contains the prohibited stimulant substance, ephedrine." Also, it's not as if Bagach happened to munch down an energy bar that secretly contained the banned substance. Kwik Energy is sold in tablet form, and Bagach claims to have been taking it for six months.

Universal makes no secret of Kwik Energy's chemical composition. Ma huang is clearly listed on the package label as the product's main ingredient. A chemical analysis of Kwik Energy and a letter to a representative of the Ukranian national team written after Bagach tested positive, copies of which were supplied to SportsLetter by Universal, state that the amount of ma huang in Kwik Energy will produce a positive drug test for ephedrine.

You'd think that Bagach might be more careful about what pills he pops these days. He already has served a two-year ban from sport after testing positive in 1989 for excess testosterone. All in all, Bagach comes out even in the medal swap. Though he lost his Athens gold, Bagach was the lucky recipient of the bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships in Athletics when American Mike Stulce was stripped of his medal for testing positive for steroids.

When Irish eyes are smiling . . . This upcoming football season, the University of Notre Dame will unveil its renovated House of Rockne. ND spent $50 million adding 21,295 seats to increase total capacity to 80,995. School officials undertook the renovation thinking that adding 21,000 seats would drastically reduce the size of Notre Dame's ticket waiting list. Testifying to the popularity of the Fighting Irish, Revenues from Sports Venues newsletter reports that the university has sold out all tickets for the new seats without being able to reduce the size of the ticket waiting list. Cheer, cheer.

Hey, nice tie! . . . SportsLetter recently received a mail-order catalog selling neckties from TOP KNOT of Salt Lake City touting the Muhammad Ali Knock Out Collection. According to the catalog, a portion of the proceeds will go to helping eradicate infectious diseases. Oddly enough, the tie designs are based on images of the actual disease organisms. Customers can order appropriately-named ties decorated with images of a number of sexually transmitted disease organisms, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphillis and HIV. We’re all for cause-related marketing, but we don’t recommend wearing one of these ties on your next date.

If you think ticket prices for NBA games are steep, get a load of this. In late June, a group of current and former NBA players (emphasis on "former") played an exhibition game in Bangkok, Thailand. Players included such former greats as Maurice Lucas, Marques Johnson, Moses Malone, George Gervin, Artis Gilmore and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Ticket prices ranged from $20 to an astounding $600 for the game. Attendance was less spectacular, however. Only 1,500 paid to see the show.

Add Thailand . . The Bangkok Post reported in June that several top Thai track and field athletes were unhappy with their training allowances and demanded to be given more than the current 100 Thai baht daily stipend. By the way, before the recent devaluation of the Thai currency, that's about $4.

Fore! . . . With Tiger Woods leading a new generation of young professional golfers and television ratings, the common assumption is that the great game of golf is sitting pretty. Not so fast, according to Trends in the U.S. Golf Market published by the National Golf Foundation. Despite the fact that the number of golf courses has grown by nearly 23%, the number of golfers and rounds played have remained stagnant over the last five years. Approximately 25 million golfers played 500 million rounds last year, a number essentially unchanged since 1990.

Add golf . . . Golf's popular image as a sport of middle-aged private country-clubbers is a bit mistaken too. The age group that plays the most golf is 30-39, 15.4% of whom played golf in 1996. Moreover, the vast majority of courses (70%) are open to the public. Golf still seems to be a sport for the affluent though. The majority of greens fees on new public courses tends to range from $30-$80 per round, making one wonder just how all those kids in the Nike commercials are ever going to afford a round of golf. After all, they're not Tiger Woods.

Just to set you straight . . . Although Hong Kong has come under the aegis of the People's Republic of China, it won't lose its status as far as the Olympic Games are concerned. Under an agreement reached between the PRC and the International Olympic Committee, Hong Kong will retain it's status as a national Olympic committee. Hong Kong will now fly the bauhinia flower flag of the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. Gold medalists from Hong Kong, of which there has been only one, will hear the national anthem of the PRC as the flag is raised in their honor.

Some universities make no gender distinction when naming sports teams. University of Michigan teams, for example, are called the Wolverines regardless of whether one is referring to the men’s or women’s teams. Other schools insist on sticking the word "Lady" in front of their women’s teams names -- Lady Volunteers, Lady Rebels, Lady Seminoles, and (the historically challenged) Lady Knights. Then there is the suffix strategy -- Minutewomen, Anchorwomen, Trojanettes, Tigerbelles. Our favorite, though, is the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaquez, a provisional NCAA school, where the men’s teams are the Tarzans and the women’s teams are the Janes.

Try the decaf dude ... Donn E. Smith publisher of Practical Sailor really really wants people to buy his magazine. Mr. Smith believes in the hard sell. Practical Sailor, according to a recent eight-page flyer, is "THE BRASH AND BRAZEN SAILING MAGAZINE THAT DARES TO TELL YOU WHAT NO ONE ELSE WILL." For example, "Did anyone ever tell you that the line ‘Coast Guard Approved’ is a crock?" PS features lots of life saving, time saving and money saving stories like the one about the "$49.95 portable potty that [is] faster and easier to clean than models costing twice as much." Act now because "Nobody. And I mean nobody else will tell you this stuff."

Meanwhile, if you’re confused about calmatives, fly masks and thrush remedies, the new Horse Journal could be just the mag for you. Publisher Timothy H. Cole (all these guys have middle initials) promises, "It’s different. It’s outspoken . . . It’s not a magazine that belongs in the drawing room; it belongs in the barn." Whoa.

Let’s get ready to rumble and rumble and rumble . . . Boxing statistician Bob Yalen’s annual survey of professional boxing’s championship fights recorded 213 world title bouts in 1996 sanctioned by the WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO and WBU. That’s up from 197 championships in 1995. That averages out to a "world championship" fight every 1.7 days.

As usual the United States hosted the greatest number of title fights with 86, followed by Thailand, Japan and Germany. About two-thirds of the fights failed to go the distance. A bout was most likely to be stopped in the second or fifth round.

Meet our new takraw-playing friend, Hanoman, the white monkey mascot of the 19th South East Asian Games to be held this October in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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