Lindsey Vonn’s win in the Women’s Downhill and Shani Davis’s in the Men’s 1,000m Speedskating pushed the US to the top of the gold medals list at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver with four, while Germany, Korea and Switzerland each have three. Vonn is the first American to win the downhill, reports Reuters, and Davis the first man to win the 1,000 at successive Olympics.
Lindsey Vonn puts on fine show
Dominique Gisin's crash affected other skiers (photo: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images)
Gold winner Lindsey Vonn (sstock photo: ©2009 US ski team)
Vancouver, BC, Canada (GenevaLunch) – American Lindsey Vonn took gold in the Women’s Downhill at Whistler mountain, in a race marked by her excellent performance, four crashes on the undulating course and wide gaps between skiers’ times. Vonn, with a time of 1:44.19, finished an impressive .056 ahead of fellow American Julia Mancuso, who won silver. The bronze medal went to Austrian Elisabeth Goergl, a full 1.46 behind Vonn. The best performance by a Swiss skier was Fabienne Suter’s. She came in nearly two seconds behind the winner, for fifth place, a remarkable performance considering that she came close to crashing and managed to right herself dramatically.
Racers appeared affected by the series of crashes that started with Swiss skier Dominique Gisin. Her spectacular wipeout left the crowd silent while they waited, then cheered when she sat up: she walked away from the course, in tears, but on her own.
Didier Defago, Switzerland, winner of the 2010 Olympics gold medal in downhill skiing
Didier Defago (stock photo, Swiss Ski 2009)
Vancouver, BC, Canada (GenevaLunch) - Didier Defago Monday evening Swiss time has won a second gold medal for Switzerland in the men’s downhill race at Whistler Mountain in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, after Simon Ammann Saturday 13 February in ski jumping. Defago, from Morgins, was until recently not even sure he’d make the cut for the Swiss team. The 32-year-old gives Switzerland its first Olympic gold in the downhill event since Pirmin Zurbriggen won in Calgary in 1988.
In the 2008-2009 season Defago won impressive back-to-back wins at Wengen and Kitzbuehel, two of the toughest runs on the World Cup circuit. He won with a time of 1:54.31.
Defago is a close friend of another Swiss sports winner, Roger Federer.
Didier Cuche, the current world number one and the favourite to win the race, came in sixth, after losing a lot of time in the final sector, for a time of 1:54.67.
Silver was taken by Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, with 1:54.38 and bronze by Bode Miller, USA, 1:54.40.
The other Swiss hopeful, Carlo Janka, came in 11th at 1:52.02.
Links to other sites: Didier Defago site, Vancouver Games on Mother Nature and ski racing, TSR (Fre), wikipedia
Other Olympic news: downhill postponed, luge moved to lower place
Vancouver, Canada (GenevaLunch) – Simon Ammann won gold for Switzerland, taking first place in ski jumping on the normal hill in the 2010 Winter Games at Whistler Mountain. He sailed 105 metres, nearly three metres further than anyone else, an extraordinary feat on the smaller normal hill. Ammann won two golds at Salt Lake City in 2002.
Ammann holds a degree in engineering.
In other Olympic Games news, the men’s downhill race, scheduled for 13 February, was postponed due to too little snow. The men’s luge has been moved to a lower starting point, which should reduce speeds by 10 percent, following the death of Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili Friday during training.
Links to other sites: Simon Ammann (Eng), TSR (Fre), Vancouver Sun profile of Ammann
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss National Bank expects to see a “large profit” of CHF10 billion for 2009, thanks to the rapid rise in the price of gold and currency fluctuations during the year. The valuation of the gold holdings of the central bank rose by CHF7.3 billion during the year, with the price of gold moving between about $800 and $1,200 an ounce (chart).
The bank’s foreign currency positions brought in another CHF2b.
The profits are shared in part with the federal and cantonal governments, some CHF2.5b.
Barbara Ann Scott, a diminutive 81-year-old with a girlish smile, carried the large Olympic torch into Canada’s Houses of Parliament in Ottawa Thursday 10 December, to warm applause. Scott was Canada’s sweetheart when she won the Olympic figure skating gold medal in St Moritz, Switzerland in 1948. The torch is wending its way to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Links to other sites: The Globe & Mail, Olympics Vancouver 2010
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US dollar continued its slide in world currency markets, pushing the price of gold higher. It reached near parity with the Swiss franc, at 1.0048, in trading Monday 16 November, and was virtually at 1.50 euros: 1.4960. Gold rose to $1,132.95 although it later slipped slightly.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Financial Times
The price of gold, which has risen 16 percent in the past year, reached a new record high of $1,048.40 ($1,054 an ounce for immediate delivery) 7 October as investors seek a hedge against the dollar. The Independent in the UK stirred fears earlier in the week with an article saying that oil-rich Arab nations could be moving out of dollars and into gold, although other market watchers disagree and the story was later discredited by several other media. A Credit Suisse gold market analyst told the Daily Mail that gold will continue to climb while investors move out of dollars. The Financial Times Thursday 8 October says “The depreciation of the US dollar is sparking growing jitters among critics of the Obama administration over the potential loss of America’s reserve currency status.”
The dollar Thursday morning was trading at $1.61/£, $.068/€ and $1/CHF1.03.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg, bullionvault, CS Monitor, Financial Times, goldprice.org, Guardian, UK, Independent, UK, Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones wire
The unemployed man who discovered a 1,300 year-old treasure in the field of his farmer friend with a metal detector two months ago may get to share $1.6 million when the 1,500 pieces of gold and silver are sold. Several museums have expressed an interest in buying the pieces of intricately worked gold and silver pieces that are parts of adorned military equipment from the eighth century. They were found in what used to be the Kingdom of Mercia in what is today Staffordshire. The exact site is being kept secret because archeologists are still picking out pieces from the ground. The man, Terry Herbert, bought his first metal detector 18 years ago. Boston Globe, The Guardian
(correction: price of gold) Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss National Bank has posted a positive half-year result of CHF5 billion before provisions, compared to a loss of CHF3.4b a year earlier. The SNB ended 2008 with a loss of CHF4.3b. The central bank’s legal obligations require it to set aside provisions that allow it to maintain currency reserves at a level necessary for monetary policy. For the first six months, CHF701.8 million will be allocated to provisions. The stabilization fund set up to bail out bank UBS had no impact on the results, the SNB points out.
Swiss foreign trade, climbing down
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss foreign trade plummeted 16 percent in the first half of the year, according to figures published 21 July by the Swiss Federal Customs Administration (SFCA). Both import and export figures dropped to levels last seen in 2006, and the second quarter figures were much worse than those for the first quarter of the year. The fall in exports is the worst six month period decline recorded.
The balance of trade was CHF9 billion, down 10 percent over a year, a fall explained by an unusual, massive import of gold jewelry for remelting, from Vietnam.
