Six-times Olympic champion Usain Bolt said he felt shocked and let down by the scandal-hit IAAF, but the Jamaican sprinter was against resetting athletics world records as the sport attempts to move on from the doping crisis.
Thursday’s second instalment of a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report slammed the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), accusing its former head, Lamine Diack, of running a clique that covered up organised doping and blackmailed athletes as senior officials looked the other way.
Read more: Osman Samiuddin on the sad lack of surprise in doping scandals
The first part of the report by independent investigator Dick Pound, a former head of Wada, in November led to athletics superpower Russia being banned from competition for state-sponsored doping.
Jamaican sprint king Bolt, the biggest name in athletics with a plethora of titles, records and commercial deals, said the IAAF had failed their athletes.
“When I heard it was quite shocking for me to hear that because as far as I was concerned I think they were doing a good job to clean up the sport,” Bolt told Reuters in Kingston after collecting his sixth National Sportsman of the year award.
“So for me to hear something like this was quite shocking and you feel let down as an athlete to be wanting to actually help clean up the sport, and then something like this to come up about the body.
“It’s kind of a letdown, so hopefully there’s no such thing, but we’ll see what happens,” with the investigations.
Diack stepped down last year after 16 years leading the IAAF and was replaced by Briton Sebastian Coe.
The Senegalese is already under formal investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money laundering linked to the concealment of positive drug tests in concert with Russian officials and the blackmailing of the athletes to allow them to continue to compete.
The reports noted that Diack “sanctioned and appeared to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the illegitimate governance structure he put in place”.
UK Athletics (UKA) released “A Manifesto for Clean Athletics” on Monday, calling for world records to be wiped clean and drug cheats to be banned for at least eight years in radical proposals aimed at heralding in a new era for the sport.
The 29-year-old Bolt, who set the 100 metre and 200m world records of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds in 2009 and shared in the 4x100m mark of 36.84secs in 2012, was against the proposal.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s really pointless,” he said.
“What’s done is done, you have to just move forward and try to make the upcoming championships and Olympics and the next (world) records as best as we can and just look forward to the future,” added the 11-times world championship gold medallist.
“You can’t worry about the past, but try to build on the future.”
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
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BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Hotel Silence
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Pushkin Press
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THE SPECS – Honda CR-V Touring AWD
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