Ryan Lochte (USA) reacts after the Men’s 200m Individual Medley Final in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 8. The swimmers actually caused a fight in a gas station close to the Olympic Village as they arrived drunk and ended up brawling with the security guards after damaging property inside the shop.
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What a shame they have such character faults.
Lochte also did not, however, roll back on his allegations the swimmers had been robbed at gunpoint by men posing as police.
While he said he was sorry, Lochte’s three-paragraph statement attempted to justify what had taken place.
One of the United States swimmers involved in an controversial incident at a Rio de Janeiro gas station said Friday that men with badges pulled guns on them and ordered them to pay money in order to leave the scene.
The 12-time Olympic medalist was under fire on Wednesday after a Brazil judge sensed a few holes in their stories and issued a search and seizure warrant for Lochte and four of his colleagues to surrender their passports and not leave the country.
Then security video reviewed by police and later released publicly confirmed the vandalism and encounter with station employees. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so – I’m not getting down on the ground.
Lochte, flew back to the United States the day after Sunday’s incident. When the confrontation escalated, the security guard took out his pistol and made them sit on the ground.
Brazil’s Rede Globo TV network obtained copies of the testimony of Lochte’s teammates and reported that all three had said Lochte lied in his public recounting of events.
“I am very proud to represent my country in Olympic competition and this was a situation that could and should have been avoided”, Lochte said in his statement.
“There has already been too much said and too many valuable resources dedicated to what happened last weekend, so I hope we spend our time celebrating the great stories and performance of these Games and look ahead to celebrating future successes”, he wrote.
Although details of the fateful night for Lochte along with Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, and James Feigen continues to unravel, a surveillance video shows the Americans kicking down a bathroom door at a Rio gas station and urinating on the premises.
The last swimmer to leave, Feigen, appeared headed home Friday.
I am grateful for my USA Swimming teammates and the USOC, and appreciate all of the efforts of the IOC, the Rio ’16 Host Committee, and the people of Brazil who welcomed us to Rio and worked so hard to make sure that these Olympic Games provided a lifetime of great new memories. In exchange, he’d be allowed to leave.
The charity, the Reaction Institute, which brings sports to low-income communities and helped train Brazilian gold medalist judoka Rafaela Silva, said the money had been paid and would be used to fully enclose a judo arena near the City of God slum.
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Jimmy Feigen was on his way back to the United States on Friday night after having his passport returned while another one of the USA swimmers who returned home has apologized and given a detailed account of the incident at the gas station.
