ABSTRACT
American and Soviet athletes compete in a wide range of bilateral competitions including basketball, boxing, hockey, swimming and track and field, to name some of the more active ones. The total number of persons involved each year is difficult to assess because the US national governing body for each sport deals directly with its Soviet counterpart, but several hundred persons from each country are believed to participate yearly. American teams are eager to compete with the Soviets in all sports. The two countries are evenly matched in many sports, and the Soviets have been improving rapidly as a result of their national training programs. Soviet tourist travel to the United States has been much smaller. During the 1960s there were a few groups each year, but the total number of Soviet tourists to the United States never reached more than a few hundred. To further encourage tourism, a US-USSR Tourism Committee was established in 1974.
