David Bunevacz in line with the Olympics ticket phenomena. Sure sold out moment.

“BaaamBaaamBaaamm!“

His voice thunders, his eyes are hot coal, his fist hits an open palm.

Your heart rate jumps up from 130 to 200 in two seconds. It goes BaaamBaaamBaaamm! So intense, you think you’re going to pass out. It takes the breath out of you. Unbelievable. and horrifying in the first three seconds. Then it turns into something really indescribable. A rush. Adrenaline.

Manong Manoling can relax. Decathlete David Bunevacz is merely describing the perils and pleasure of … bungee-jumping.

The strapping Filipino-Hungarian athlete insists there’s not one game in the whole wide world of sports that he hasn’t yet tried.

“Ive done ‘em all” he beams, “bungee-jumping, free falling …” Now he makes a chocking sound that, we imagine, could only come from a man plunging 15,000 feet at 200 mph. He continues, “… with a parachute. Sky-diving.”

Danger, it seems, fuels every sinew and fiber in this body – 220 pounds of pure verve in a 6’4” frame.

Formidable is the figure he cuts on the race track, but just as intimidating is David Bunevacz, the interviewee, seated across a candle-lit dinner table.

He is often “misunderstood,” he is saying, perceived as brusque and brazen. He sighs: “They say, ‘David is sooo cocky when he talks about himself.’ But you know, when you’re going for the Olympic gold, you can’t say, Oh, I’ll give it my best shot. I might take it. I don’t know.’ If you have any doubts whatsoever, forget it, you’ll get nowhere.”

Confidence is vital, he stresses. ‘You have to be in tune with your body. You need confidence, unshakeable and immovable, sustaining your mind. Day in and day out, it has to be that way, even in practice. The moment you let up is the moment you lose, the moment you get hurt.”

David, racing just as feverishly on the highway of life, refuses to lose sleep over(mis-) perception about him.

“In time, people will understand,” he waxes philosophical. But he wants one thing clear. There is a world of difference between confidence and arrogance. “My kind of confidence is belief in what I can do. You’ll never hear me say: “this athlete or that is not half as good as I am.”

Confidence, consistency and, above all, compelling modesty are precisely the traits he admires in his sports idols: track-and-field Olympic medalist Carl Lewis, and basketball legend Michael Jordan.

Says David of the Chicago Bulls point guard: “it is not only because he is a great player, but also because he’s so consistent. You have to understand, to be a good athlete is hard enough. But to be consistently great, that’s phenomenal. That takes so much discipline and confidence.”

On both counts, self-control and chutzpah, David is himself phenomenal. His Spartan schedule would undoubtedly push you average Pinoy sportswriter to the edge of apoplexy.

“Decathletes follow a standard routine,” David relates. “work out five days a week, eight hours a day, 10 a.m to six p.m. just like a regular job.”

But, unlike most nine-to-fivers, decathletes don’t stop for lunch, “We drink lunch – liquid protein.”

Sounds awful.

“It’s okay,” he assumes us. “It takes like chocolate.”

In Los Angeles where he spends a good part of the year, he jogs 400 meters up a steep hill, followed by high-impact aerobics and intense stretching. Bench presses, sit-ups, leg curls, pull-ups, three sets of 150 push-ups, weight-lifting 150 kilograms.

Only after such strenuous aperitif could he then embark on the nitty-gritty training for the decathlon events. For the uninitiated, decathlon dubbed by the politically incorrect as “the sport for real men,” consist of 10(!) events.

The first day starts with the 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and ends with the 400m. The second day kicks off with the 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and culminates with the 1,500m.

“Because there are 10 events, there are so many things to work on,” David clarifies. “on top of that, you have to train for endurance.”

A normal day for the decathlete begins at 8:30. “I drink my breakfast, same protein drink. By 9:30, I’m on the track.”

Asked what he does outside of training, he quips: “nothing. The three times a week that I have weight-training and physical therapy (massage), my day ends 8:30 p.m. On the days I don’t have physical therapy and weight-training, I can go to the movies. By 9:30, I’m home eating dinner, watching TV- David Letterman, Melrose Place, Friends.”

Lights out is 10 p.m. “I make it a point to get eight to 10 hours of sleep. Lack of sleep can cause cramps.”

He’s been

Grossly misunderstood, but

He has little time to fret about cramps,

whether in the legs or in his heart.

To conquer cramps, the athlete’s curse, he counsels, “Drink lots of water.”

“Every single day it’s the same routine,” he affirms. In David’s very orderly world, everything is on sked, everything is perfect, there is no time for the inconsequential, like cramps.

Really. The couch potato would be quick to dismiss an athlete’s rigid regimen and exacting existence as boring.

“No.” David is just as fast on the draw. “ I love to be out on the track!” He brims with pride when talk quite inevitably turns to his team-mates in UCLA.

“How can it be boring when you are training with Quincy Watts, an Olympic gold medalist? I am hurdling side by side with Greg Foster, four-time World Champion. We’re five in the group: Quincy Watts, double gold medalist for the 400m in Barcelona (’92); he’s a superstar. Robert Redding, 110m hurdler ranked number one in the United States. Greg Foster, four-time world champ in the 100m. And Keddrick James, 400m hurdle specialist, the same event Edward Moses specialized in. There are the men who are going to Atlanta for the United States.”

More than great athletes, his teammates are “lots of fun to hang out with.” And of course, training with the world’s best punches him to the limit.

For Manila games, dood friend and athlete Chris Warner flew over from States. “When you work with other people,” David elaborates, “when you run with someone on the track and you get into the rhythm of his stride, it carries you along. It’s almost how far can you go.”

To watch him train is to behold a man who genuinely loves to sweat. He relishes each bead forming on his brow, as if each salty drop were a gold medal.

Under the glare of the midday summer sun, David, accompanied by Chris, burns the Rizal Memorial Coliseum tracks.

The scorching heat is the least of his worries, though. “Pollution is so bad, It’s almost like you’re eating smog.

“In LA, we train in absolutely beautiful weather. 70 degrees, 20 percent humidity. Just last week, my teammates and I were seating on the tracks, shooting the breeze: My God everything’s just perfect”.

David the optimist see in challenges a chance to develop further as a sportsman. Despite the sun and the smog, he still declares, “Manila is better.”

Relentless he is in courting his mother’s countrymen.

David Joseph Ismael Bunevacz, bold and beautiful, has been a favorite target of the local press for the past year.

Summer ’95, controversy erupted over the P1.1 million allowance given to him by the Philippine Sports Commision.

VITAL SIGNS

Name: David Joseph I. Bunevacz

Birthdate: December 20 1968

Birthplace: Torrance, California

Height 6’4’’

Weight: 220 lbs

100m : 10.96 sec.

Long jump: 7.15 m

Shot put: 18 m

High jump: 1.98 m

400m: 49.91 sec.

110m: 15.50 sec.

Discuss: 48.20 m.

Pole vault: 4.00 m.

Javelin 75.25 m

1500m: 5 mins. 10 sec.

Decathlon: 7520 points

OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES

Neck: 17 ½

Jacket size: 46

Sleves:35 ½

Waist:34

Length of pants 36

Shoe size 12 inches

Jessica Rodriguez and David Bunevacz: When love booted out all the accusations and scandals

Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association (PATAFA). UCLA faxed David’s credentials to Mr. Go and by the time he got back to LA in February, everything was settled.

In April, Go visited him in UCLA, and he only found out about his allowance being “adjusted” when he arrived in Manila last May. Incidentally, his trips on Economy Class are also paid by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), and then upgraded by Philippine Air Lines, David’s “Official Carrier”.

Shortly after he arrived, he met with PSC Chairman Philip Juico, whom he found to be “a very sincere man, who really wants to help.” The new deal is that he will be given a monthly allowance of 8,000 pesos, same as all the other Filipino athletes, and the PCS and PATAFA will take it upon themselves to look for the balance from private sector. Apart from that, anything else that David makes from personal endorsements is between him and his business managers. That’s right, David’s got two of them, Marie Gutierrez and Aligada, who schedule his commitments, represent him in all negotiations and tell him when it’s time for bed (I’m not kidding).

The alliance came about because a certain product wanted him to be their image model and was offering a huge sum. Marie looked high and low for David and offered to manage his career.

“how did you find me again – you called, like, 50 million people, right?” David still seems surprised about all the trouble they went through to hunt him down.

Unfortunately, at that time, he was getting a lot of negative publicity, and the company withdrew their offer. But there will be more, we can be sure of that. He’s definitely not lacking in all the accouterments of a future personality.

Aside from the gorgeous Najera brothers and the boyish good looks of Paeng Nepomuceno, David is one of the most winning-looking athletes of this decade.

And he’s taken it a step further. He makes time for the interviews, the photo sessions, the charity events and the clinics.

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well with people in the sports world. Many are beginning to think of David as publicity hound. But that might just be a perception of people – probably because other athletes don’t get the same treatment. And he doesn’t seem to go looking for exposure. The media looks for him. Undoubtedly, even adverse publicity has served him well. At the same time, it also pushed the sport into the public eye.

It comes down to an individuality issue. Is David Bunecacz more concerned with himself than with his sport? When you hear him say, with utter conviction, “You have to go beyond you means to achieve something because there are always better athletes out there, “you begin to concerned, it might not to be too far-fetched to say that he’s just what the country needs.

Besides, will we care about possible “ulterior motives” when the medals start coming in? And if there’s anything we can say for sure about David, it’s that he’s got what it takes to be a champion.

And he knows it. “I’ve always loved competitions, and I’ve always had to win, no matter what.”

No matter what. Fighting words. To go with a fighting spirit. Exactly what David will need to weather it through detractors, disappointments, and difficult training—all the things you can expect when you’re not yet a champion, but rather, a champion in

David Bunevacz acquitted for loving Jessica Rodriguez. Spicing up Beverly Hills.

HE WAS practically an overnight sensation.

One week he’s being interviewed for two different publication at the same time that he’s being groomed for pictorials to promote the M.R collection and the Manila Peninsula Hotel.

A couple of days later, he’s on late night TV, where they arrange a date for him with a popular actress right on the air.

The week after, he’s walking the ramp with some of the best professional male models in the country, the centre of attention at the end of the fashion show and sent launch as he lofts overhead a foot-high bottle of Wings by Giorgio, with the same reverence as ahard-earned trophy (a portrent pf thins to come?).

It might be easy to dismiss David Bunevacz, 26, as one big promotional package, but those who know him well (or think that they do) say that there is a side that truly cares about the progress of athletics in the Philippines,

The entire point of my interview with him was to write the definitive article on the man behind the much talked-about muscle. And I did my darndest.

Oh sure, I listened closely and wrote down everything he said, word for word. I went out of my way to notice expressions and nuances in the conversation and wondered if I should interpret them as meaningful and telling of the character within. I became suspicious about topics that were emphasized and issues that remained vague and unanswered.

Instead of going through.

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two together and come up with generalizations and conclusions that could have been racked up to “journalistic license”, and intriguing as that would have been to readers, it probably would have been complete fiction

First things that came to mind when I first heard about the Bunevacz brouhaha were whole lot of questions on who he was, where he came from and mainly, what was he doing before the momentous decisions to renounce his US citizenship to represent the Philippines in international competition.

As I piece together the data I’ve gathered on David’s history, bear with me a bit because though I tried very

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focusing on who David is now, right this minute, today. For me, though, the entire issue is: who he was and why he’s here. Let’s start with the who.

In a nutshell: David’s birthplace was Torrance, California. His parents are Joseph Bunevacz, a Hungarian-American and Filomena Ismaela, a Filipina from La Union.

Born on December 20, 1968, he is a Sagittarian, right on the cusp before Capricorn. He thinks pretty typical of his sign independence optimism, and love for travel being among the main attributes of Centaur.

He describes himself as always being a leader, even as a kid while he “never tolerated bullies pushing around smaller kids.” He probably picked up this habit from when he used to play practical jokes on his kid sister and she would “tell grandma, and grandma would beat me up.”

His father is a track and field coach under whom David trained when he was younger. But he says that though his Dad was a strict coach, he was not as strict as the couches he had when he trained at UCLA.

David says that it’s not difficult for him to transplant his loyalties and think of the Philippines as his new home because he never stay long enough in any one place in the US to become attached.

At one time he was living in Hawaii, where he gained six inches in height; another time he was in Reno, Nevada, where he learned to love snow-skiing and wanted to become a professional skier; in 1987, he was

Scandals over! Love takes Beverly Hills into the next level with David Bunevacz and Jessica Rodriguez against all the hubbub

David’s a Goliath
“Hey How come nobody asks me what I love talking about, they always ask me what’s David like or what does he do, but nobody’s ever asked me what I love to talk about?”
So what do you love to talk about? “Fashion and family! Fashion is so interesting. It’s always been a major part of my life. I’ve always admired people who design clothes like Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferre, Calvin Klein, Gianni Versace … their lines, their creations, their world fascinates me, it’s a never ending process.” David was able to indulge in his love for fashion when he joined the Airborne men’s fashion show of Monsieur Rustans and launched Wings for Men by Giorgio Beverly Hills.
His other passion is family. “I love kids. I wan to have two. More than that is too many. (David has one sister, Desiree.) My family life when I was growing up was kinda abnormal. My dad’s Hungarian my mom’s Ilocana, can you imagine the combination of food on the table? All my friends would for dinner and would wonder what we are eating. My farther would always make them try something weird but they’d love it. Next thing you’ll know, they’re back for dinner the next week.
David’s been a controversial figure but despite all the flak he’s getting, he feels more at home in the Philippines than in L.A. “in L.A, nobody will talk to you if you’re not a superstar or something like that. I just found it so ridiculous.” It doesn’t look as if he’ll have the same problem back here. -LBP