Athletics pulls Vitaminwater flavors

By Adam Samson

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Kansas Athletics Department chose to have six flavors of Vitaminwater with banned or impermissible substances taken out of the vending machines within the athletics department as of Feb. 14.

Vitaminwater’s remaining seven flavors will still be available within the athletics department, and all 13 flavors will still be sold elsewhere on campus.

Associate athletics director Jim Marchiony said the removal was an easy decision because the six flavors had ingredients with the potential to affect a student athlete’s eligibility.

“It was a simple decision because it has impermissible contents,” Marchiony said. “The best way to prevent it is to not bring the items into an area where they can inadvertently get it.”

Ingredients in Vitaminwater, a sports drink in the same line of products as Gatorade and Powerade, do not necessarily make an athlete test positive.

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Photo Illustration by Jerry Wang

In a recent statement, the NCAA clarified its position that an average-sized man would have to drink ten 20 oz. bottles of Vitaminwater Energy or Rescue flavors before a competition to reach the level that could create a positive urine test.

The NCAA statement also said that eight flavors, including one the Athletic Department pulled, contained no impermissible or banned contents. “Banned” means athletes are not able to use them at all. “Impermissible” ingredients are fine for athletes to use, but universities cannot provide them.

Randy Bird, the University’s sports nutritionist, said six Vitaminwater varieties had impermissible or banned contents.

Bird said the two products with banned ingredients were Energy tropical citrus and Rescue green tea, because they have added caffeine, which is on the banned substance list.

“Caffeine is conditionally banned, meaning athletes can take products like coffee and tea that have caffeine in it, but if they get too much and have too much caffeine excreted in their urine for a drug test, they can test positive,” Bird said.

According to Bird, caffeine is banned by the NCAA because of the possibility that it could enhance an athlete’s performance both physically and mentally.

“Getting an energy drink, you honestly don’t know how much caffeine is in there, and usually there’s a lot,” Bird said. “Companies can add to it and really spike the caffeine content. That’s when athletes run the risk of testing positive, getting too much.”

The reason for concern with the caffeine in Vitaminwater is that the amount of caffeine is not described on the bottle, whereas a bottle of pop identifies how much caffeine it contains.

Four other flavors — Power-C dragonfruit, B-relaxed jackfruit-guava, Vital-T lemon tea-rooibos and Balance cran-grapefruit — contain impermissible substances such as taurine, L-theanine, rooibos tea extract and glucosamine. Vital-T was not mentioned in the NCAA statement as one of the flavors to watch out for, but the University has removed it from the athletics department anyway. A spokesperson for Glaceau Vitaminwater said Vital-T flavor was still on the market but only in select retail areas, including at the University.

Bird said he thought the reports circling around the banned-substance rule had been negative for Coca-Cola and the Vitaminwater products.

“It is hurting Vitaminwater’s business and reputation because of all this bad press about Vitaminwater and potential for having banned and impermissible substances,” Bird said. “You think about everything going on with A-Rod and baseball, people immediately jump to steroids and think that Vitaminwater is going to make people test positive for anabolic substances and that’s not the case.”

Bird said he sent an informational e-mail on Feb. 11 to all KU head coaches and administrators alerting them about the decision to pull the flavors from athletics department shelves.

Bird couldn’t recall a time at the University when any athletes had tested positive for high caffeine levels in their urine. Although no cases have occurred, Bird said he would like to see more control over the supplement industry.

“It’s really ballooned out of control,” Bird said, “especially within the collegiate population.”

— — Edited by Chris Horn

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