Puma expects closer ties even if Usain Bolt ‘retires’

Commercial role

BERLIN, July 27, (RTRS): German sportswear firm Puma wants to forge even closer ties with Usain Bolt, the highest profile athlete it sponsors, if the Jamaican sprinter retires after the Rio Olympics, predicting he could be just as valuable off the track.

“Usain is part of the Puma family,” Chief Executive Bjorn Gulden told reporters on Wednesday.

“If he decides not to run, we will probably work even closer with him,” he said, adding Bolt would have more time for product development and could even take on a commercial role at Puma.

Bigger rival Nike has built a brand with annual sales of $2.8 billion with retired basketballer Michael Jordan, while Adidas still uses former England soccer star David Beckham to promote its products.

Gulden made the comments after Puma reported a stronger-than-expected rise in second quarter sales, helped by the European soccer championships as well as products designed by singer Rihanna, appointed women’s creative director in 2014.

Bolt has been at the centre of a push by Gulden to put more emphasis on sport performance gear rather than fashion, also bolstered by its sponsorship of English soccer side Arsenal.

Bolt has promoted Puma’s “Ignite” running shoes, but Bankhaus Lampe analyst Peter Steiner said track and field was a relatively small category so his eventual retirement was unlikely to be a big hit. Puma reported a quarterly net profit of 1.6 million euros ($1.8 million), compared with a loss of 3.3 million a year ago. Sales rose 7 percent to 827 million euros.

Puma shares pared earlier gains to trade up 0.2 percent by 1051 GMT, while owner Kering rose 2.3 percent. Adidas, which has been hitting a series of record highs in anticipation of bumper results on Aug. 4, was up 1.1 percent.

Gulden said it was not clear whether the six-time Olympic sprint champion, who has been sponsored by Puma since he was 15 years old, would keep running after the Rio Olympics, saying Bolt might need time off to think about it.

Gulden said the Jamaican was already helping Puma hunt for a successor, adding the company has a strong scouting operating in the Caribbean: “We have to admit there won’t be a second Usain but there will be something else,” he said.

While the Olympics is a major platform for the brand, Gulden said it was hard to measure a direct impact on sales as fans do not buy replica team shirts in the same way they do for soccer.

Puma’s quarterly sales jumped a currency-adjusted 23.5 percent in Europe, Middle East and Africa, helped by its sponsorship of five national soccer teams at Euro 2016.

Gulden said Puma’s partnerships with Rihanna and celebrity Kylie Jenner were helping it win more space at key retailers, which are all putting more focus on the women’s business because it is growing faster than the men’s.

Bolt

envisaged matching Stenson’s record winning score of 20-under at Troon, though his task was not helped by the bad luck he had to be on the more difficult side of the draw.

“Baltusrol, it’s more of my type of golf I guess, and I feel like I can really do well this week. I feel like my game is in good shape,” McIlroy told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Thursday’s opening round.

“I had some really good practice sessions with my coach, Michael Bannon last week. I feel like I’m swinging it well. I’m hitting it good. Every aspect of my game, I’m very comfortable with.

“So combine that with the layout of the golf course here, and I feel like this is my best chance this year to win a major.”

Spieth also thinks he is on the verge of firing on all cylinders, after recently deciding to just grip it and rip it, to use the old John Daly line, rather than over-thinking things.

“I’ve been getting a bit too frustrated at times but recently I’ve gotten back to kind of the gunslinger, the way that I grew up playing, which is just step up and hit it,” the Texan said on the eve of his 23rd birthday.

“I have more confidence in my mid-tolong-iron play than I did last year. Short game has gone down just a bit. I’m working hard on it.”

Spieth, who won the Masters and US Open last year and came close at the British Open and PGA Championship, is focusing on a long term goal of winning all four modern majors.

“My goal has changed now to trying to win a career grand slam, and this would be a fantastic time to grab a third leg,” he said, observing that he was still young, though “younger today than tomorrow.”

Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson forged an epic duel in the final round of

Jordan Spieth of the United States lines up a putt during a practice round prior to the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club on July 26, in Springfield,

New Jersey. (AFP)

the British Open and they ride into the season’s final major, the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, on a wave of momentum and inextricably linked in golf lore.

That may seem odd in a sport where there is a winner and a loser, but the masterly battle between winner Stenson, who fired a record-tying 63, and runner-up Mickelson, who shot 65 to finish 11 shots ahead of third place at Royal Troon, set a standard for major golf finishes.

“I’m just delighted I managed to win it in the end,” said Stenson, 40, who set a British Open record with a 20-under total in winning his first major championship.

“When you hear the words that Jack (Nicklaus) and Tom (Watson) and a lot of the best players that have ever played the game are giving us credit for how we played, that’s obviously very pleasing and very humbling.”

Mickelson, who won the 2013 British Open at Muirfield, finished on 17-under, a total that would have won 141 of the 145 British Opens played. He said the finish was deflating but at the same time he found strength in how well he played.

“I think it’s the first time in my career that I have played to that level of golf and not had it be enough to win a tournament,” the five-times major winner told reporters on Tuesday. “That’s a disappointing thing because I would have loved to have added another Claret Jug.

“I don’t look back on the final round with anything that I would have done different, other than maybe go over to Stenson’s bag and bend his putter a little bit. That’s probably the only thing I could have done and had a chance.”

Mickelson won the second major of his career at the 2005 PGA at Baltusrol, the last time the Tillinghast course hosted a major.

“Because I am playing well, I don’t want to (lose) an opportunity, another really good opportunity that I have to play a PGA Championship here at Baltusrol at a course I like, while my game is sharp, and let the effects or disappointment linger.

“What I want to do is just play to that level that I played at the British Open. I have to try to believe that it will be enough this time, if I’m able to duplicate that performance.”

Stenson and Mickelson, 46, thrilled the galleries at Troon and millions of golf fans around the world watching the broadcast and inspired other aging players with their bravura performances.

“It’s a boyhood dream come true and something I wanted to achieve all my life, and then it finally happened,” said Stenson, the first Swede to win a men’s golf major.

“You’re never going to get to the point where you’re maxed out in your ability and how you’re playing, so there’s always that strive to become better. I got a little perfectionist in there that’s always been pushing me forward...

“So I think I’ve still got a good few years in me and I’m going to try and keep on

developing, and if you don’t, these young guys are going to come up and take over. So I still think I’ve got a bit of fight in me.”

Mickelson, 46, believes he has more years of great golf ahead.

The big lefty said the way he learned to play golf, quieting the body down and using the length of the arc and swinging motion of the club to develop speed, helped him stay healthy.