KATHMANDU, Feb 6: The great swimming sensation and all time high Olympic gold medalist 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 Associated Press (AP) reported rfom Colorado Springs, Colorado that the US 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.
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.
(Read more in our ´Sports´ section.)
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