Swimmers’ alleged Rio robbery fiasco continues
There are sports that demand quick thinking and strategy, that require the athlete to process information and react intelligently to it.
In related news, Ryan Lochte jumps into a pool and swims in a straight line until he hits a wall.
Lochte, 32, a 12-time Olympic medallist, has long had a reputation for having the smarts of a brick. It’s a reputation he’s even cultivated, with a short-lived reality show that celebrated his frat-boy persona. And so, the idea that he might have made up a story about being robbed in Rio at gunpoint, while also describing himself as totally unfazed by having a criminal point a gun at his head, is certainly plausible. The most unbelievable part of the tale so far is that it was Lochte, alone among the four U.S. swimmers who say they were robbed, who was wise enough to get out of Brazil before anyone started asking too many questions.
Those questions, meanwhile, keep coming. Late Thursday afternoon authorities in Rio indicted Lochte and teammate Jimmy Feigen on charges of false reporting of a crime, the Federal Police of Brazil confirmed to ABC News. Feign and teammates Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger remain in Brazil and are said to have met with local authorities sometime on Thursday. In the void of any further statements from the Americans, many reports have completely flipped the narrative of the robbery story, now asserting that the U.S. swimmers trashed a gas station and wrecked a toilet, then refused to pay for the damage until a security guard intervened. British and Brazilian media say there is security-camera footage of the fracas at the gas station. And, Brazilian police sources have been anonymously quoted as saying that Conger and Bentz have admitted that the robbery story was fabricated. Rio’s police chief held a press conference Thursday afternoon in which he asserted that the crime did not happen to the Americans. It is unclear how not solving an alleged robbery is undisputed proof that it did not happen at some point.
(None of the Americans, as of Thursday, has publicly stated that no robbery occurred.)
News of the alleged robbery was a thunderbolt to Rio 2016 on Monday morning: four athletes, including the second-most decorated Olympic swimmer of all time, being robbed by an armed man posing as a police officer, was the kind of story that many feared as these Games have unfolded. Security has been an ever-present concern, with foreign visitors thoroughly warned about the dangers of crime on Rio streets, and thousands of soldiers walking those streets and standing on corners as a show-of-force deterrent. There had been other examples of theft and robbery, but the Lochte story, owing at least partly to his fame, had wide repercussions. Some countries advised their athletes against leaving Olympic sites, while Rio organizing committee officials sombrely apologized that violence had affected their guests.
If it is true that Lochte did simply lie about a robbery for reasons unknown, it is odd he did so in a manner that fit so perfectly with pre-existing beliefs about Rio. Visitors here were told to be careful when out late at night, and especially when leaving bars. Criminals were known to prey on wealthy drunken tourists, we were told, sometimes with the aid of a taxi-driving accomplice. So the Lochte story was a confirmation of all of that: even with soldiers marching all over the place, Rio still wasn’t safe. If the Olympics were a chance to showcase the city to the world, this was telling them that it was a place where you didn’t want to carry much cash.
On Tuesday morning, Rio 2016 officials weren’t exactly doing a victory lap, but close. Spokesman Mario Andrada, while saying the ongoing investigations needed to be complete be- fore the security situation could be evaluated, all but confirmed he no longer believed anyone was robbed. Asked if he wanted Lochte to apologize, Andrada said: “No apology from him or the other athletes is needed. We have to understand that these kids were trying to have fun,” he said.
Doubling down, he said: “You know, let’s give these kids a break, you know, sometimes you take actions that you later regret.” Besides, he said, Lochte is a great swimmer. “They had fun, they made a mistake, it’s part of life, life goes on.”
Andrada’s unexpected graciousness in victory could partly be due to the fact that he knows the Games are not yet over, and that, whatever happened with the Americans, security remains a real concern. Just Thursday morning, a British newspaper reported that a British athlete had been robbed at gunpoint, causing the Great Britain delegation to issue detailed warnings to its members about travelling outside Olympic zones.
Asked about the “several” reports of robberies that have taken place since the Games began, Andrada replied: “When you say ‘several’ reports, we didn’t have several, we had some.” He also said the city, where he lives with his family, was safe enough.
The reader can decide the difference between “several” and “some,” but the Lochte story, if nothing else, has taken reports of actual violence and pushed them aside for reports of Americans who might have lied about possible violence.
No one yet knows why Lochte and friends would have invented their story. No one yet knows, officially, if they did.
But in the meantime, America goes from victim to perpetrator. Brazil goes from culprit to victim.
Which might explain, come to think of it, why the Rio 2016 spokesman was in such a good mood.