“These guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing, just a police badge and pulled us over”, he told NBC.
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At this point, Lochte said one of the men pulled out his gun, cocked it and raised it to his forehead. They told the other swimmers to get down on the ground.
Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday by thieves posing as police officers who stopped their taxi and took their money and belongings. He also thanked everyone for their support and hinted that he may return to the pool for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. “I was like, we didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground”, Lochte said in the interview conducted at a Rio beach.
The robbery of Lochte, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen early Sunday, as they returned in a taxi to their hotels after a night of partying, has fed concern over safety at the first Olympic Games in South America.
“He took our money, he took my wallet”.
That was the latest in a series of security incidents during the Games and Rio 2016 communications director Mario Andrada on Monday spoke of his regret that the athletes had been subjected to such an ordeal.
But Lochte, among the most successful male swimmers in Olympic history, said he initially refused.
“Everybody saw the confirmation by the U.S. swimmers that indeed they were held up when returning to the Olympic Village”. “We have requested the security authorities. need to make sure everybody is safe everywhere in the city. We apologize to those involved, and once again we regret that violence is still an issue in these Games”. Lochte has won a total of 12 Olympic medals, six of which are gold, behind teammate Michael Phelps’s 28 medals, 23 of them gold.
“All of the athletes have participated in competitions without any kind of problems”.
In addition, stray bullets have twice landed in the equestrian venue, and two windows were shattered on a bus carrying journalists in an attack that Rio organizers blamed on rocks and others claimed was gunfire.
“I contacted USOC [USA Olympic Committee], they told me the story was not correct”.
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Whenearly reports surfaced about the incident, International Olympic Committee spokesman, Mark Adams, called the claims, “absolutely not true”.
