Ryan Lochte told USA TODAY Sports earlier today that he, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, and Jimmy Feigen didn’t initially tell the U.S. Olympic Committee that they were robbed at gunpoint on Sunday morning “because we were afraid we’d get in trouble.”
On Sunday morning, an IOC spokesperson said that the reports of the robbery were “absolutely not true.” It appears that the IOC had no way of knowing about the robbery, given that the American swimmers didn’t let them know.
Today, the USOC’s Mark Jones told USA TODAY Sports “we were just working with the information we had.”
The news that the swimmers didn’t notify the USOC comes on the heels of the news that they also did not file a police report. Instead, the police responded after news had circulated through the media.
United States Olympic Committee spokesperson Patrick Sandusky gave the following statement about the incident:
“According to four members of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team, they left France House early Sunday morning in a taxi headed for the Olympic Village. Their taxi was stopped by individuals posing as armed police officers who demanded the athletes’ money and other personal belongings. All four athletes are safe and cooperating with authorities.”
Lochte described the incident to NBC:
“We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over,” Lochte said. “They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so — I’m not getting down on the ground.
“And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, ‘Get down,’ and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”
Lochte hired private security for the remainder of his time in Brazil and flew back home to the United States earlier today.
Wouldn’t it be good for the IOC to like, maybe…ask them? At least don’t straight out deny it, give it a “we have no indication this took place.”
Maybe this kinda thing happens so frequently that it’d be too annoying to check with Michael Phelps every time a reporter calls and asks them if his refrigerator is running or something, I dunno.
And so the plot thickens.