After rumours and unconfirmed reports swirled over the past day, US Olympic gold medal swimmer Ryan Lochte confirmed that he was held up and robbed in Rio by a group of men impersonating police officers.
Brazilian police are investigating the incident, which occurred early on Sunday morning as Lochte and fellow athletes were returning to the Olympic village.
“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,” the Olympian told NBC News.
“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.”
Props to him for dropping the extremely casual ‘whatever’ at the prospect of being robbed in a cab by fake cops.
Officials weren’t totally clear on what had gone down on Sunday, with the International Olympic Committee initially denying that the event had ever happened, before walking that back and confirming their initial denial was “not correct”.
As we’ve reported in the past, the Games have been fraught with concerns about crime, and Lochte is by no means the first athlete to be robbed. For example, Aussie Paralympian Liesel Tesch had her bike stolen while on a training run in June.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty Images / Matt Hazlett.
