This Mascot Has to Do More Than Show Up

Pan-Pan is psyched. Under strict police guard and accompanied by a 10-person entourage, the giant panda mascot of the Asian Games is quartered at the Four Seas Hotel in Beijing, feeding on shoots of the rare arrow bamboo flown in by special plane.

At the Games’ closing ceremony Oct. 7, weeks of training will pay off when Pan-Pan pushes a flower-laden cart into the Beijing Workers’ Stadium and presents it to Poppo, the dove mascot of the 1994 Asian Games, to be held in Hiroshima, Japan.

Add Asian Games: Reuters reported that the World Wide Fund For Nature--whose logo includes a panda--has been critical of China’s use of the endangered species for “panda diplomacy.” There are now believed to be fewer than 1,000 giant pandas living in the wilds of southwest China.

Beijing responded to the Fund’s most recent complaint by renewing an offer to send a panda to a zoo in Taiwan.

Pan-Pan?

Last add Asian Games: The crowd at the weightlifting competition was stunned Thursday when South Korea’s Chun Byung-Kwan, a silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, won in the men’s 56-kilogram class, upsetting China’s Liu Shoubin, the world record-holder.

Although Chun was the first non-Chinese lifter to win a title at the Asian Games, the crowd’s spirits soon were lifted as favored China’s He Zhouquiang won in the 52-kilogram class.

The spectators chanted: “He’s Superman.”

Trivia time: Which player holds the NFL record for consecutive games with at least one field goal?

Spreading gloom: Purdue Coach Fred Akers, whose team plays Notre Dame today, commented Thursday on Irish Coach Lou Holtz’s reputation for poor-mouthing.

Asked to comment on the Boilermakers’ being 24-point underdogs, Akers said: “I’m sure by game time, Lou will find a way to have us 15-point favorites.”

Hard to swallow: Coca-Cola Co. President Donald Keough tried to downplay it, but 25 of Coke’s Greek chain outlets have dropped the soft drink to protest the International Olympic Committee’s decision to hold the 1996 games in Atlanta rather than Athens.

Said Keough: “There was a little bit of a flap right after the announcement. I think we’ve got it all smoothed over now.”

The soft drink company has been a major Olympic sponsor for decades. Coke spokesman Randy Donaldson insisted that its international headquarters in Atlanta kept strict neutrality, while distributors in the six competing cities each contributed to the respective local bids.

Doubling down: Earl Strom, who recently retired as an NBA referee, once was an official in the American Basketball Assn.

Strom is the subject of a story in the current issue of the New Yorker. In it, he recalls telling a reporter that Julius Erving, then a rookie forward with the New Jersey Nets, was the greatest player he had ever seen. ABA commissioner Jack Dolph fined Strom $50 for making an inappropriate comment.

Strom said that he sent Dolph an extra $50, along with a note reading: “Here’s an extra 50, because I’m telling you also that he’s the greatest player I’ve ever seen.”

Trivia answer: Fred Cox of the Minnesota Vikings, with 31 from 1968-’70.

Quotebook: Texas Ranger pitcher Nolan Ryan, who had six stitches in his lower lip after being hit by Bo Jackson’s hard bouncer: “I’ll look in the mirror and remember Bo for the rest of my life.”