Ryan Lochte and fellow USA swimmers Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen last week claimed they were robbed at gunpoint, which drew huge media attention and raised concerns over the Games’ security which had always been criticized, reports Xinhua news agency.
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The International Olympic Committee commission could sanction the athletes if they considered their behaviour violated the Olympic charter.
Lochte, Feigen and teammates Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger said that they had been robbed by gunmen impersonating police officers. But he finally came to his senses Friday morning and issued an apology for instigating an global incident based around his stories of armed robbery.
“It’s absolutely not true”, USOC spokesman Mark Jones said of the report, which was based on unnamed sources. In this Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016 frame from surveillance video released by Brazil Police, swimmer Ryan Lochte, second from right, of the United States, and teammates, appear at a gas station during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio d.
“It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country – with a language barrier – and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave”, he said. Police still want to speak to Lochte, who was also summonsed to appear before the judge on Friday, and say they hope to agree with USA authorities to interview him in the United States.
Ever since Ryan Lochte was caught lying about being held at gunpoint in Rio on August 14th, people are wondering what his teammate, Michael Phelps thinks about the whole ordeal.
Rio’s mayor says he feels “pity” for Lochte and three other American swimmers involved in an incident at a gas station over the weekend, adding that “they did not represent the American athletes that are here”. “So if I go out all night and I’m dancing or I’m drinking, you know what, I still have a job to do, I still have a goal to do, and that’s the 2016 Olympics”, Lochte said to WTXF.
He also said that this was a “situation that could and should have been avoided”.
The situation raises questions about the future for Lochte, who is planning to take time off from swimming but wants to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. O Globo reported that he is being ordered to donate $11,000 to a local sports charity to drop the charges against him and leave the country. In sworn statements to investigators, the other swimmers described Lochte as drunk and unruly, saying he had damaged property at a gas station and later misrepresented what happened. “Once the security officials received money from the athletes, the athletes were allowed to leave”.
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In his account of last week’s incident, Gunnar Bentz said the guards confronted them after they had urinated behind bushes near a petrol station. Veloso said the guards would have been justified in drawing their weapons because the athletes “were conducting themselves in a violent way”. We will further review the matter, and any potential consequences for the athletes, when we return to the United States. “It is not representative of what is expected as Olympians, as Americans, as swimmers and as individuals”.
