In the Phelps case, the board announced a week after the arrest that it was suspending the sport’s biggest star for six months, banning him from competing in the 2015 world championships and taking away six months of his funding stipend.
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Earlier Friday, the attorney for Jimmy Feigen – one of the three USA swimming teammates who were with Lochte on the night in question – announced that his client will pay about $10,800 to an unnamed Brazilian charity and then leave the country. I waited to share these thoughts until it was confirmed that the legal situation was addressed and it was clear that my teammates would arriving home safely. Authorities pulled US swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz off their plane, confiscated their passports and detained them for questioning. A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Lochte and Feigen to surrender their passports and not leave the country while it was determined whether the Americans had made a false police report.
Ryan Lochte’s apology statement was lacking in actual apologies.
“My feeling is one of pity”, Mayor Eduardo Paes said.
The two swimmers than told authorities that the robbery had been made up on Thursday. The situation was an enormous embarrassment for the U.S. Olympic team, which has dominated in the medal count. “They are magnificent athletes”, Mario Andrada, a spokesman for Rio 2016, said Thursday.
“I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend”, wrote Lochte in the statement.
Developments came rapidly after police asserted that the swimmers had not been robbed. At one point, a security guard pulled a firearm after one swimmer behaved erratically, Veloso said, adding that the guard had not over-reacted: “From the moment the gun was pulled out, they calmed down”.
But Rio police said the story was fabricated.
Still, the Brazilian Olympic Committee accepted Lochte’s apology, apparently wanting to get on with focusing on the Games just like the rest of us. The money will go to a charity called Reaction Institute.
But ringleader Lochte didn’t deal with any aftermath because he was already back in the states, nor did he retract his words that he was robbed at gunpoint. Investigators couldn’t substantiate details given in early statements and interviews and the claim began to unravel.
Ryan Lochte has released an official apology for his involvement in the reported gas station bathroom vandalism in Rio. Veloso said the guards would have been justified in drawing their weapons because the athletes “were conducting themselves in a violent way”.
The guards lowered their guns and the swimmers left, walking down the street to find another cab to take them back to the Olympic Village.
Lochte’s attorney, Jeff Ostrow, said the incident still amounted to a robbery and the new information and video did not change that view.
“They told the other swimmers to get down on the ground, they got down the ground”. I only showed my gun.
The debacle prompted both wild speculation and social media mockery, which quickly turned to scorn after the official account went public. His 12 Olympic medals are second only to Michael Phelps among USA male Olympians.
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Turcotte said the 20-year-old swimmer, who won a gold medal in the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay, handled the kerfuffle well ever since he and Conger were removed from a plane.
