[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM130.78 per gramme, down 14 sen from RM130.92 at 5pm last Thursday.-- Bernama
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Peyton Manning's eyes got wide as the ball zipped past his helmet and into the end zone.
Manning spent the past two weeks trying to envision and work through every possible scenario that he and his Denver Broncos could face in the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. It's hard to believe that even once Manning imagined not being able to catch the game's opening snap.
Yet just 12 seconds into Super Bowl XLVIII, before Manning had thrown a pass or handed off to a running back, the Broncos trailed 2-0. For a team that scored 606 points in the regular season, 2-0 hardly seemed insurmountable. Neither did 5-0, or 8-0, nor maybe even 22-0 at halftime — not when Manning could remind his teammates about that time they rallied from down 24-0 to the San Diego Chargers in 2012.
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver in the 43-8 loss.
Still, the bad snap was the moment that seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Suddenly, the quarterback who had been so upbeat in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, telling jokes and stories, reflecting on his career-altering neck surgeries and deflecting talk about potential retirement, was rattled, and his brilliant 2013 season, perhaps the best of his brilliant career, ended with his worst game since signing with the Broncos last year.
"We knew they were fast, it was still a matter of us doing our jobs better and we didn't do that tonight," Manning said.
And it didn't happen from the beginning. Seattle fans roared as Manning lined up for the opening snap of his third Super Bowl. It was so loud that it felt like a road game, yet the Broncos were trying to operate using Manning's cadence rather than a silent snap count.
"We weren't able to. I thought I heard him, and I snapped the ball," Ramirez said. "I was shocked. You never expect anything like that to happen. Of course I'll take full blame for that."
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver, which lost 43-8.
"They came out right from the jump and punched us around. Anytime you have a team out there that punches you around, you have to punch back. it seemed like the harder we fought, the quicker we failed," Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie told USA TODAY Sports. "It was like we were in quicksand out there."
The first snap seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Manning also threw two first-half interceptions, including one that was returned 69 yards for a Seattle touchdown, failed to lead the Broncos to a first down in the first quarter, and lost a fumble in the second half. Both interceptions came on poorly thrown passes – off-target wobblers Manning tossed with Seattle defenders in his face or batting at his arm.
"Certainly to finish this way is very disappointing," Manning said. "It is not an easy pill to swallow, but eventually, you have to."
Those mistakes were Manning's, but he wasn't the only Bronco to falter. Two days after Broncos head coach John Fox said in his final pre-Super Bowl news conference that the "star players have to be great in championship games," few of the Broncos who were so special in leading Denver to its first Super Bowl appearance in 15 years played well.
Seattle, much like it was when the Seahawks blew out the Broncos in a preseason game in August, were the aggressors. Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, the only Denver defensive player who had played in a prior Super Bowl, only shook his head when asked how to explain such a blowout.
Rodgers-Cromartie said he believed that a team that had already survived – and even thrived – despite the loss of five defensive starters, as well as All-Pro left tackle Ryan Clady, and spent a month without their head coach while he recovered from heart surgery, would be able to overcome Seattle's hot start.
The offensive line that had barely allowed Manning to be touched in two AFC playoff games (and hadn't allowed a sack) couldn't handle Seattle's ferocious front seven, as Manning had little time to throw and rarely looked comfortable in the pocket. Even if there was time for Manning to throw, the Broncos' receivers struggled to get open deep against Seattle's physical defensive backs.
Even the Broncos' best offensive player Sunday, receiver Demaryius Thomas, lost a fumble in the third quarter while trying to extend a 23-yard catch with a stiff-arm to kill the Broncos' first promising drive. Thomas scored the Broncos' first touchdown later in the quarter, on a 14-yard pass from Manning, but that score (and subsequent two-point conversion), only cut Seattle's lead to 36-8.
"What probably hurts more is to turn it over, and turn it over that many times, especially in this game, against a good football team," Broncos executive vice president John Elway said.
Denver's defense, meanwhile, a group that held Tom Brady and the New England Patriots and Philip Rivers and the Chargers to three points each in the first three quarters of their previous playoff games, held Seattle to a pair of early field goals and largely contained Marshawn Lynch, yet struggled against the Seahawks' passing game that was rejuvenated by the return of Percy Harvin.
"He was a factor for them, with his runs, and his speed," Rodgers-Cromartie said.
Harvin, who scored a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half, was dangerous on end-around and sweep plays, while Seattle's other receivers found plenty of separation from Denver's defensive backs. When Jermaine Kearse broke four tackles on his way to the end zone on a third-quarter touchdown, Denver's defense was done.
If the Broncos' were devastated by their 2012 playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens – a loss they used as motivation throughout this year – this game left the team and its fans stunned, with good reason. Denver hadn't been held to less than 20 points all season, and had never been blown out in the Manning Era. In 35 previous games, the Broncos lost only seven times, and never by more than 10 points.
"Just a total let down," left tackle Chris Clark said. "It hurts because we're way better than what we showed."
VIDEO: Manning talks about disappointing Super Bowl
Elway was Denver's quarterback the last time the Broncos were here, leading Denver to consecutive titles in 1997 and 1998. This Super Bowl though felt more like Elway's earlier trips to the Super Bowl, like the 55-10 loss to San Francisco and a 42-10 loss to Washington.
Elway shook his head when asked if Sunday felt similar.
"No, those are separate," Elway said.
Elway was young in those early losses, unlike Manning, who plans to return to the Broncos next year at age 38 to try to make another run at his elusive second Super Bowl ring. Elway didn't have much to say now that could make Manning, nor the rest of his players, feel much better.
"It's just one of those nights," Elway said. "We had a tremendous year. We'll use his and hopefully we'll learn from this and we're going to go at it again next year."
The man was found on a Marshall Islands atoll on Thursday
Castaway says he's Jose Ivan Alvarengo, 37
Man says he lived off turtles and rainwater while adrift
Companion died four weeks after pair left Mexico, Alvarengo says
(CNN) -- A mysterious castaway claiming to have been lost at sea for 13 months is now safely back on land, but many questions remain about how he could have lived on his small boat for so long as it drifted across the Pacific Ocean.
The man calling himself Jose Ivan Alvarengo turned up in a heavily damaged boat on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands, claiming that he had been living off fish and turtles he had caught and relying on rainwater, and sometimes his own urine, to drink.
Authorities are trying to determine the veracity of Alvarengo's story.
He was found on sparsely populated Ebon Atoll, a 22-hour boat ride from the capital of Majuro, on Thursday. The southernmost of the Marshall Islands' atolls, Ebon has only 2.2 square miles of land, one phone line and no Internet service. The government airplane that services the atoll was not working, so Alvarengo did not make it to Majuro until Monday morning.
Alvarengo, who says he is 37, is now in a local hospital recovering from his ordeal, said U.S. Ambassador Tom Armbruster.
"He's in much better shape than one would expect after such an ordeal," Armbruster said.
"I had just killed a bird to eat and saw some trees," he is quoted as saying.
"I cried, 'Oh, God.' I got to land and had a mountain of sleep. In the morning, I woke up and heard a rooster and saw chickens and saw a small house. I saw two native women screaming and yelling. I didn't have any clothes; I was only in my underwear, and they were ripped and torn," The Telegraph quotes Alvarengo as saying.
People on the island where he was found Thursday say the 26-foot fiberglass boat was in very bad condition, covered in barnacles and with the carcasses of several turtles littering the deck.
Alvarengo claims to have set off from a port near the southwestern Mexican city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, for what was supposed to be a one-day expedition to catch sharks on December 21, 2012.
He claimed that he and a teenage companion were blown off-course by northerly winds and then caught in a storm, eventually losing use of their engines.
According to Anjenette Kattil of the Marshall Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alvarengo said that four weeks into their drift, he lost the young man because he refused to eat raw birds. There are no details on what Alvarengo did with the young man's body.
Alvarengo told the Telegraph his companion's death had him contemplating suicide.
"For four days, I wanted to kill myself. But I couldn't feel the desire; I didn't want to feel the pain. I couldn't do it," he is quoted as saying.
Kattil said Alvarengo worked for a company named Camaroneras de la Costa in Mexico. He has told authorities that he is a citizen of El Salvador but has lived in Mexico for the past 15 years and wishes to be repatriated back to Mexico.
Armbruster, the U.S. ambassador, said Alvarengo indicated that he had relatives living the United States and U.S. officials would attempt to locate them.
Government officials have been in contact with Mexico's ambassador to the Marshall Islands, who is based in the Philippines, concerning Alvarengo in hopes he can contact El Salvadoran authorities.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it has sent personnel from its embassy in the Philippines "to learn directly about the case."
If Alvarengo's story proves true, the trip across the Pacific would have taken him across roughly 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of open ocean before ending in the Marshall Islands, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, in the northern Pacific.
Such an amazing journey isn't unheard-of in the small Pacific nation, as three Mexican fishermen made a similar drift voyage in 2006 that lasted nine months. Those men lived off fish they caught and rainwater, and they read the Bible for comfort.
Conditions in the Pacific make the timeline of Alvarengo's journey plausible, according to Judson Jones, a producer for CNN Weather.
Jones said the currents between Mexico and the Marshall Islands would have carried a boat about 27 miles (42 kilometers) a day. That would mean the journey would take about 208 days if the boat stayed in the current. But Jones said a meandering journey in and out of the currents was most likely, making a 13-month journey believable.
CNN's Nick Parker and Brad Lendon and journalist Jack Niederthal contributed to this report.
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