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Feb5
Financial support cut after gold medalist was pictured holding pot pipe
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Michael Phelps was suspended from competition for three months by USA Swimming, the latest fallout from a photo that showed the Olympic great inhaling from a marijuana pipe.The sport’s national governing body also cut off its financial support to Phelps for the same three-month period, effective Thursday.
“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” the Colorado Springs-based federation said in a statement.
“Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust.”
Phelps won a record eight gold medals in Beijing and returned to America as one of the world’s most acclaimed athletes. Now he’s enduring a wave of bad news in the wake of the photo, published Sunday by News of the World, a British tabloid.
Earlier Thursday, cereal and snack maker Kellogg Co. announced it wouldn’t renew its sponsorship contract with Phelps, saying his behavior is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg.” The swimmer appeared on the company’s cereal boxes after his Olympic triumph.
“Michael’s been through a lot and he’s learned a lot, hopefully,” his coach, Bob Bowman, told The Associated Press during a telephone interview. “I support him and I want to see him do better. I’m here, as always, to try to help him move forward. He’s learned some tough lessons and he’s disappointed a lot of people, me included.”
Phelps has acknowledged “regrettable” behavior and “bad judgment.” He didn’t dispute the authenticity of the photo, reportedly taken at a house party while Phelps was visiting Columbia, S.C., in November during an extended break from training.
“I certainly understand USA Swimming needed to take action,” Bowman said. “We will certainly abide by everything they’ve put down.”
The 23-year-old has resumed training in his hometown of Baltimore, but his plans to return to competitive swimming will have to be put on hold. Phelps had planned to compete in early March at a Grand Prix meet in Austin, Texas.
Now, he won’t be able to compete until early May, which would give him a little more than two months for some racing before July’s world championships in Rome.
“This is the result of a poor decision Michael made,” U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said in an e-mail. “He understands there is accountability and has pledged to not repeat this in the future. We have offered our assistance to make certain he is as consistent and successful away from the pool as he is in it, and we are confident that will happen.”
After the suspension, Phelps would be able to compete at a May meet in Charlotte, N.C.; there’s another Grand Prix competition in Santa Clara, Calif., the following month. The U.S. team for Rome will be chosen at the national championships, which begin July 7 in Indianapolis.
“He’s been very good in practice,” Bowman said. “I think he feels good to be back in the water. Certainly, he’s not in very good shape.
“We’re anxious to get back to a really normal routine and we have. We’re moving on.”
Several of Phelps’ Olympic teammates rallied to his defense. Among them was Dara Torres, the 41-year-old silver medalist whom Phelps jokingly referred to in Beijing as “Mom.”
“I see him as a kid trying to grow up in the most intense spotlight known to any athlete. He has apologized and what else can he do?” she told the AP by telephone. “The thing I hope is that people realize Michael is still a person and not just a swimming hero.”
Torres said she sent Phelps a text a few days ago to extend her support.
“He didn’t let the USA down at the games, so we shouldn’t let him down,” she said.
Torres doesn’t expect a three-month suspension in a non-Olympic year to have much affect on Phelps’ career. He intends to keep swimming through the 2012 London Games.
“Knowing Michael the way I do, I guarantee you it’s going to make him want to do well,” Torres said. “All this is going to do is light a fire under him.”
Amanda Beard compared Phelps’ ordeal to some of the disdain she faced after posing nude in Playboy magazine before the Beijing Games.
“If anyone knows public scrutiny, it’s me,” the four-time Olympian said in a text message. “When I posed for Playboy, so many officials looked down on me. Michael knows he isn’t a bad person. He made a mistake. People need to get over it. I want to cheer him on in London.”
Even a rival agent came to Phelps’ defense.
“Enough is enough,” said Evan Morgenstein, who represents a large number of Olympic swimmers. “The penalty is far greater than the crime. He has said he is sorry. Let’s move on to the real problems in this country.”
No CommentsFeb4Metals, oil prices set for weak 2009
Filed under: Wall Street; Tagged as: china, Economy, finance, financials, gold, Money, new york, oil, Politics, Wall Street
PARIS, (AFP) – Depressed prices for metals and oil are likely to stay weak for most of this year given the worsening state of the global economy, but gold and agricultural commodities are on a firmer trend, analysts say.“The world recession and debt reduction,” which reduce liquidity on financial markets, “will remain the dominant factors” on commodity markets in the medium term, said Calyon Credit Agricole analyst Robin Bhar.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has cut production and the mining sector is cutting jobs rapidly, amid expectations that demand for metals and for oil will continue to fall this year.
At BNP Paribas, analyst Harry Tchilinguirian said that since a recovery was not expected before the third quarter, prices were unlikely to stabilise before then.
In addition, speculator and institutional investors, who had played a significant role in a strong rise of commodity prices up to the middle of 2008, “play a far lesser role when the market is falling,” said Philippe Chalmin, an expert in raw materials and president of the Cyclope group that specialises in analysing raw materials markets.
The price of iron was likely to fall particularly sharply this year when the average price level would be 60 percent below the average in 2008, Cyclope forecast, and the price of aluminium would be 20 percent lower.
But these price levels concerned averages for the year and “given current prices, they can’t fall much further,” Chalmin said. The price of aluminium is the lowest for six years.
Gold, which attracts money seeking protection during times of uncertainty and risk aversion, should hold up better.
The price of an ounce of gold rallied at the end of January to return above 900 dollars, the highest point for three and a half years. Cyclope says it could fall by 2.0 percent on average this year from the equivalent level last year.
On the London Bullion Market on Tuesday, the price of gold fell to 905.50 dollars an ounce from 918.25 dollars the day before.
Goldman Sachs analysts think that the price of oil could drop below 30 dollars per barrel by the end of the first quarter of this year and then rally to 65 dollars on average on the second half of 2009.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) on Tuesday, a barrel of “light sweet crude” for delivery in March closed at 40.78 dollars, up 70 cents from its close on Monday.
Tchilinguirian expects the price of oil to be 40 dollars per barrel on average in the second quarter, rising towards 70 dollars per barrel at the end of the year. Cyclope meanwhile expects an average price of about 50 dollars, rising to 60 dollars at the end of this year.
Agricultural commodities are likely to hold up best in 2009, as they are less affected by the rapid slowdown in industrial activity than the sectors of energy or metals.
And the harvest in 2009-2010 is likely to be less abundant that that in 2008-2009 which was “extraordinary”, Chalmin said.
However, “the biggest importers of wheat and rice are countries that produce oil such as Nigeria and Algeria,” he said. “Since oil prices are weak, they can no longer pay high prices for these imports.”
Cyclope forecasts that on average the price of wheat will be steady this year in line with prices last year, but that there will be a rise by eight percent in the price of cocoa, which is running at the highest levels for 25 years, as well as a rise of 12 percent in the price of corn and of 23 percent for sugar.
Next year, the metals and oil markets might rally strongly
Bhar observed that given cutbacks in supplies in these two markets, there could be “a supply shortage” when economic recovery begins to spread, laying the basis for “a future market rise.”
He said that “Chinese and Indian demand has not disappeared, given the pressures in these countries for industrialisation.”
And production costs which “have risen strongly in the last five years” have not fallen despite the crisis, and could contribute to a firming of prices, he said.
No CommentsFeb1No CommentsA US-based salvage firm is believed to have found remains from the wreck of a legendary British warship which sank in the English Channel in 1744.
Odyssey Marine Exploration is expected to announce on Monday that it has found HMS Victory, the forerunner of Nelson’s famous flagship of the same name.The valuables from the vessel, including brass cannons, could be worth millions of pounds, some experts say.
If confirmed, the find could trigger a row with the British government.
The remains from HMS Victory have been reportedly found in international waters.
But as a military wreck, they officially belong to the British state.
‘Gold coins’
Ahead of the expected announcement at a news conference in London on Monday, Odyssey Marine Exploration’s CEO Greg Stemm said the firm was negotiating with Britain over collaborating on the project.
“This is a big one, just because of the history,” Mr Stemm was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
“Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this.”
Mr Stemm declined to reveal the exact location of the warship’s remains.
“We found this more than 50 miles (80km) from where anybody would have thought it went down,” he said.
HMS Victory has been described by some maritime experts as “the finest ship in the world” at its time.
It sank with more than 1,100 seamen aboard, including Admiral Sir John Balchen, in a fierce storm off the Channel Islands.
The ship’s exact location has since remained a mystery, despite numerous attempts by salvagers to find it.
The vessel had 100 brass cannons and reportedly some 100,000 gold coins on board.
In 2007, Odyssey said it had salvaged 17 tonnes of gold and silver coins, worth $500m (£343m), from a shipwreck in the North Atlantic.
The Spanish government later sued the company, claiming the the sunken ship was a famous 19th-Century Spanish galleon. The case is pending.