The International Olympic Committee is looking to set up a disciplinary commission to determine if swimmer Ryan Lochte and three of his teammates will face punishment over what Brazilian authorities say was a fabricated story about a robbery during the Rio games, ABC News confirmed. Lochte had said he and three other American swimmers were robbed Sunday at gunpoint, but police said security guards at the station had used weapons exclusively to control the men, saying at least one athlete had vandalized the station and another had urinated on the premises.
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The swimmer said he had accepted responsibility for his role in the incident, adding he had learnt some valuable lessons.
In a news conference yesterday, Rio police said US swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, who had been pulled off an airplane by authorities as they attempted to return to the USA, gave statements that they had not been victims of a robbery, as Lochte had reported and told NBC News in interviews.
The statement posted on Facebook said that the decision was made in a court appearance to answer police accusations that Feigen and fellow swimmer Ryan Lochte had made false claims that they were robbed.
The report from the police offers a dramatically different interpretation than the one Lochte described on Sunday.
Lochte had been held at gunpoint in Rio, but it was by gas station security demanding that he and his friends pay for the damages they caused, not bandits taking their wallets. “Ryan’s focused on making sure that his whole team gets back here and that making sure that people understand that although he made a mistake, they were victims here and that shouldn’t be overlooked, ” he said. They left the country Thursday night.
However, the story of the incident began to fall apart after investigators found inconsistencies in the swimmers’ accounts of what transpired that night.
“These guys came here causing trouble … but we did not touch them at all”, the 34-year-old guard told an Us Weekly source via a translator.
Brazilian authorities said Thursday that no robbery took place.
The attorney said that per an agreement with Brazilian authorities, Feigen will donate 35,000 in Brazilian currency to an institution and leave.
The US Olympic Committee issued a public apology for the men’s conduct.
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Brazilian authorities announced Wednesday that they meant to seize the passports of the swimmers, which also included James Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, so they could talk to them further about the incident, saying there was evidence Feigen and Lochte had lied.
