Police seek indictment of Ryan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen.
Brazilian police have recommended that United States swimmers Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen be indicted on charges of falsely reporting a crime in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Police of Brazil told ABC News.
ABC News had previously reported that the pair had been indicted, but it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to act upon the recommendation, and that step has not yet been taken.
The latest twist comes after Brazilian police said four American swimmers were not robbed at gunpoint at a gas station as they claimed.
There is no immediate word on whether Lochte's and Feigen's teammates, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, who were also involved in the incident, have been indicted. They spoke with authorities on Thursday, while Feigen has not been interviewed by police.
Lochte has maintained that he and his teammates were robbed at gunpoint at a gas station in a Rio suburb after returning from a night of partying.
"No robbery was committed against these athletes. They were not victims of the crimes they claimed," Civil Police chief Fernando Veloso said during an afternoon news conference Thursday.
Veloso said the four swimmers vandalized the bathroom on the side of the gas station, damaging mirrors and other property. He said surveillance video shows employees of the gas station tried to control the situation but that the swimmers went to their taxi and tried to get away.
When employees realized what was going on, security guards asked the taxi driver not to leave and to wait for police. Although Brazilian police had said previously that no guns were involved in the incident, Veloso said security officers at the gas station did use guns to control the situation. The surveillance video does show a man approaching the taxi with an object in his hand, but it's not clear whether it is a gun.
Veloso said the gun involved was a legal weapon used by the security guard.
Veloso said the athletes refused to wait for police to arrive. During that time, a third person offered to interpret and explained to the athletes that they had to pay for what they had done to the bathroom. According to Veloso, they offered to pay in the form of a $20 bill and 100 reals (about $51).
Veloso said in the news conference that one of the athletes had confirmed this version, saying there was no robbery. He added that the video confirms the swimmers were not victims of physical or verbal abuse.
Lochte first recounted a robbery to his mother, Ileana Lochte, who spoke with reporters, a police official told the Associated Press. That led to news coverage of the incident and prompted police attention.
Conger, Bentz and Feigen remain in Brazil, as authorities have ordered the seizure of their passports. A Brazilian judge also ordered Lochte's passport be seized, but he said he has already returned to the U.S.
Brazilian authorities said in a statement Thursday that Conger and Bentz were taken off their airplane. A police source told ESPN Brasil that the swimmers were interviewed for just more than three hours at the airport, with a Brazilian lawyer and representatives from the USOC and the U.S. consulate present.
Stephen Conger, the father of Jack Conger, told ESPN on Thursday that his son slept in a hotel Wednesday night and was guarded by U.S. government personnel. Jack was never under arrest, according to his father. "It's more a political ordeal than a criminal one," he said.
Stephen Conger said the plan is for Jack to be on a plane home Thursday night. He said he's shared text messages with his son but said: "We're as in the dark as anyone about what happened. I don't know if there was a robbery or not."
NBC spoke with Lochte on Wednesday night and reported that he said he had left Rio and already returned home, as originally scheduled.
Lochte backtracked on his initial comments to the network made Sunday, saying the barrel of the gun he had said was placed to his forehead was instead pointed in his direction. He also said the taxi wasn't pulled over but that the swimmers were robbed after making a stop at a gas station.
He said when he was interviewed by police about the incident that no one had suggested he needed to stay in Brazil, nor had any officials expressed doubts over his account of the robbery, NBC reported.
International Olympic Committee spokesman Mario Andrada said during a news conference Thursday that neither Lochte nor his teammates need to apologize for the incident.
"We have to understand that these kids came here to have fun. Let's give these kids a break," Andrada said. "Sometimes you make decisions you later regret. They had fun. They made a mistake. Life goes on."
Andrada's comments were made before the reports that a robbery did not happen.
Brazilian police have recommended that United States swimmers Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen be indicted on charges of falsely reporting a crime in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Police of Brazil told ABC News.
ABC News had previously reported that the pair had been indicted, but it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to act upon the recommendation, and that step has not yet been taken.
The latest twist comes after Brazilian police said four American swimmers were not robbed at gunpoint at a gas station as they claimed.
There is no immediate word on whether Lochte's and Feigen's teammates, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, who were also involved in the incident, have been indicted. They spoke with authorities on Thursday, while Feigen has not been interviewed by police.
Lochte has maintained that he and his teammates were robbed at gunpoint at a gas station in a Rio suburb after returning from a night of partying.
"No robbery was committed against these athletes. They were not victims of the crimes they claimed," Civil Police chief Fernando Veloso said during an afternoon news conference Thursday.
Veloso said the four swimmers vandalized the bathroom on the side of the gas station, damaging mirrors and other property. He said surveillance video shows employees of the gas station tried to control the situation but that the swimmers went to their taxi and tried to get away.
When employees realized what was going on, security guards asked the taxi driver not to leave and to wait for police. Although Brazilian police had said previously that no guns were involved in the incident, Veloso said security officers at the gas station did use guns to control the situation. The surveillance video does show a man approaching the taxi with an object in his hand, but it's not clear whether it is a gun.
Veloso said the gun involved was a legal weapon used by the security guard.
Veloso said the athletes refused to wait for police to arrive. During that time, a third person offered to interpret and explained to the athletes that they had to pay for what they had done to the bathroom. According to Veloso, they offered to pay in the form of a $20 bill and 100 reals (about $51).
Veloso said in the news conference that one of the athletes had confirmed this version, saying there was no robbery. He added that the video confirms the swimmers were not victims of physical or verbal abuse.
Lochte first recounted a robbery to his mother, Ileana Lochte, who spoke with reporters, a police official told the Associated Press. That led to news coverage of the incident and prompted police attention.
Conger, Bentz and Feigen remain in Brazil, as authorities have ordered the seizure of their passports. A Brazilian judge also ordered Lochte's passport be seized, but he said he has already returned to the U.S.
Brazilian authorities said in a statement Thursday that Conger and Bentz were taken off their airplane. A police source told ESPN Brasil that the swimmers were interviewed for just more than three hours at the airport, with a Brazilian lawyer and representatives from the USOC and the U.S. consulate present.
Stephen Conger, the father of Jack Conger, told ESPN on Thursday that his son slept in a hotel Wednesday night and was guarded by U.S. government personnel. Jack was never under arrest, according to his father. "It's more a political ordeal than a criminal one," he said.
Stephen Conger said the plan is for Jack to be on a plane home Thursday night. He said he's shared text messages with his son but said: "We're as in the dark as anyone about what happened. I don't know if there was a robbery or not."
NBC spoke with Lochte on Wednesday night and reported that he said he had left Rio and already returned home, as originally scheduled.
Lochte backtracked on his initial comments to the network made Sunday, saying the barrel of the gun he had said was placed to his forehead was instead pointed in his direction. He also said the taxi wasn't pulled over but that the swimmers were robbed after making a stop at a gas station.
He said when he was interviewed by police about the incident that no one had suggested he needed to stay in Brazil, nor had any officials expressed doubts over his account of the robbery, NBC reported.
International Olympic Committee spokesman Mario Andrada said during a news conference Thursday that neither Lochte nor his teammates need to apologize for the incident.
"We have to understand that these kids came here to have fun. Let's give these kids a break," Andrada said. "Sometimes you make decisions you later regret. They had fun. They made a mistake. Life goes on."
Andrada's comments were made before the reports that a robbery did not happen.
Nice job ladies.....Congrats!
Abrahamson: U.S. relay moves on after one-off run-off.
RIO de JANEIRO — Some people love, in their lives, to create drama. Allyson Felix is not one of these people. She is calm, steady, composed, even-keeled. Pretty much all the time.
Some mysterious karma, however, seemingly delights in connecting the Olympic experience and Allyson Felix with weird mega-drama.
“Why me?” Felix said Thursday evening with a smile.
Referring to her brother and manager, Wes, she said, “I was laughing with my brother about it. Sometimes you just have to laugh. Yeah … it’s just very, very strange.”
In what is widely believed to be an unprecedented Olympic relay do-over, the U.S. women’s 4x100m team — with Felix pulling the second leg — ran Thursday morning in a tangled mess, then got the chance Thursday evening to run again, in a time trial, to try to qualify for the relay final back here Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
o qualify, the Americans had to go better than 42.7 seconds. That would bump out eighth-place China.
Easy.
Like it was practice at an American junior college track, the four women — Tianna Bartoletta to Felix to English Gardner to Morolake Akinosun — crossed in 41.77, the fastest mark of the eight qualifiers.
Olympic Stadium has hardly been full for track and field’s run here to begin with, but there were precious few fans in the stands for this very first event on the Thursday evening program.
Indeed, the boom from the starting gun rattled around the place.
“It was weird but it was a lot of fun doing it,” the 22-year-old Akinosun would say after, adding, “It kind of felt like a glorified practice.”
Race-offs are super-common in swimming. If in the heats two athletes register the same time for, say, the last lane in a final, the two line it up and swim it off, the faster one moving on.
The track version can be either run-off or time trial. They do happen. But infrequently.
For instance, at the 2014 world junior championships in Eugene, Oregon, Ecuador’s Angela Tenorio was initially disqualified in the 100m for a false start. Replays showed she had not gone too soon. So she was allowed to re-run the race by herself after the rest of the day’s events had concluded.
She ended up qualifying and, moreover, taking second in the final.
Going back to London in 1908 and the men’s 400m, and what remains one of the most controversial races in Olympic history:
Britain’s Wyndham Halswelle won Olympic gold in a re-run. In the originally scheduled race, one of the leading Americans would end up being disqualified. Two others refused to run the second time through. So Halswelle ran the track by himself to Olympic victory.
Felix is herself part of arguably the most infamous tie in U.S. Olympic Trials history. At the 2012 Trials, she and Jenebah Tarmoh ran to a dead heat for the third spot in the 100m, and thus the London Games.
Officials ultimately decided to conduct a run-off. NBC was going to show it in prime time, along with its coverage of the swim Trials. But shortly before the race, Tarmoh announced she was dropping out — giving the spot to Felix.
You couldn’t write a movie script featuring that much drama.
In London, Felix finished fifth in the 100m. She — finally — won gold in the 200m, after coming up just short (drama that lingered for years) with silvers in 2008 in Beijing and 2004 in Athens. In London, she was part of the U.S. teams that won gold in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, the sprint relay setting a world record, 40.82 seconds.
At the 2016 U.S. Trials, Felix won the 400. But, running on an injured ankle, she took fourth in the 200, meaning (drama) she did not qualify for the event.
Here at the 2016 Olympic 400, Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas fell, or tripped, or dove across the line to win, Felix taking second. The drama increased when, afterward, Felix spent 20 minutes lying on the side of the track, collecting her thoughts. An hour after the race, she met with reporters to say, fighting back tears, “It’s just painful.”
That 400m silver made Felix a seven-time Olympic medalist. That is the most any American woman has won in track and field. Felix called the moment bittersweet.
Big picture-wise, Felix said, "It hasn’t been easy."
In Tuesday morning’s relay heats, the U.S. women dropped the baton, Felix stumbling toward Gardner and trying to toss Gardner the baton. It glanced off Gardner and hit the track.
“I think I was in disbelief,” Felix said. “I couldn’t believe … more things were happening. So, really, I think, I was stunned.”
Quick thinking — Felix told Gardner to pick it up and run.
Good thinking — because the only way a protest could have been reviewed, and ultimately accepted, is if the Americans had finished.
“It just flashed into my mind: in order to appeal, you’ve got to finish the race,” Felix said, then turning to the others, adding, “These ladies did such an amazing job uplifting me.”
Instant replay showed what happened: as Felix was about to enter the exchange zone, a Brazilian runner in the next lane, bumped her.
Formally: Felix’s progress was impeded by contact.
“If you think about it,” Gardner said, “we are going about 20 mph, so if a foreign object comes in front and throws off your momentum, that’s going to mess up a hand-off.”
All that set up the do-over, at 7 p.m. sharp.
Easy. Weird. Fun.
Immediately afterward, Bartoletta — who had won gold in the women’s long jump Thursday night — got her medal. That made for a happy scene.
As for everything else: less drama, maybe, going forward?
“We all,” Allyson Felix said, laughing, “agree with that.”
RIO de JANEIRO — Some people love, in their lives, to create drama. Allyson Felix is not one of these people. She is calm, steady, composed, even-keeled. Pretty much all the time.
Some mysterious karma, however, seemingly delights in connecting the Olympic experience and Allyson Felix with weird mega-drama.
“Why me?” Felix said Thursday evening with a smile.
Referring to her brother and manager, Wes, she said, “I was laughing with my brother about it. Sometimes you just have to laugh. Yeah … it’s just very, very strange.”
In what is widely believed to be an unprecedented Olympic relay do-over, the U.S. women’s 4x100m team — with Felix pulling the second leg — ran Thursday morning in a tangled mess, then got the chance Thursday evening to run again, in a time trial, to try to qualify for the relay final back here Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
o qualify, the Americans had to go better than 42.7 seconds. That would bump out eighth-place China.
Easy.
Like it was practice at an American junior college track, the four women — Tianna Bartoletta to Felix to English Gardner to Morolake Akinosun — crossed in 41.77, the fastest mark of the eight qualifiers.
Olympic Stadium has hardly been full for track and field’s run here to begin with, but there were precious few fans in the stands for this very first event on the Thursday evening program.
Indeed, the boom from the starting gun rattled around the place.
“It was weird but it was a lot of fun doing it,” the 22-year-old Akinosun would say after, adding, “It kind of felt like a glorified practice.”
Race-offs are super-common in swimming. If in the heats two athletes register the same time for, say, the last lane in a final, the two line it up and swim it off, the faster one moving on.
The track version can be either run-off or time trial. They do happen. But infrequently.
For instance, at the 2014 world junior championships in Eugene, Oregon, Ecuador’s Angela Tenorio was initially disqualified in the 100m for a false start. Replays showed she had not gone too soon. So she was allowed to re-run the race by herself after the rest of the day’s events had concluded.
She ended up qualifying and, moreover, taking second in the final.
Going back to London in 1908 and the men’s 400m, and what remains one of the most controversial races in Olympic history:
Britain’s Wyndham Halswelle won Olympic gold in a re-run. In the originally scheduled race, one of the leading Americans would end up being disqualified. Two others refused to run the second time through. So Halswelle ran the track by himself to Olympic victory.
Felix is herself part of arguably the most infamous tie in U.S. Olympic Trials history. At the 2012 Trials, she and Jenebah Tarmoh ran to a dead heat for the third spot in the 100m, and thus the London Games.
Officials ultimately decided to conduct a run-off. NBC was going to show it in prime time, along with its coverage of the swim Trials. But shortly before the race, Tarmoh announced she was dropping out — giving the spot to Felix.
You couldn’t write a movie script featuring that much drama.
In London, Felix finished fifth in the 100m. She — finally — won gold in the 200m, after coming up just short (drama that lingered for years) with silvers in 2008 in Beijing and 2004 in Athens. In London, she was part of the U.S. teams that won gold in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, the sprint relay setting a world record, 40.82 seconds.
At the 2016 U.S. Trials, Felix won the 400. But, running on an injured ankle, she took fourth in the 200, meaning (drama) she did not qualify for the event.
Here at the 2016 Olympic 400, Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas fell, or tripped, or dove across the line to win, Felix taking second. The drama increased when, afterward, Felix spent 20 minutes lying on the side of the track, collecting her thoughts. An hour after the race, she met with reporters to say, fighting back tears, “It’s just painful.”
That 400m silver made Felix a seven-time Olympic medalist. That is the most any American woman has won in track and field. Felix called the moment bittersweet.
Big picture-wise, Felix said, "It hasn’t been easy."
In Tuesday morning’s relay heats, the U.S. women dropped the baton, Felix stumbling toward Gardner and trying to toss Gardner the baton. It glanced off Gardner and hit the track.
“I think I was in disbelief,” Felix said. “I couldn’t believe … more things were happening. So, really, I think, I was stunned.”
Quick thinking — Felix told Gardner to pick it up and run.
Good thinking — because the only way a protest could have been reviewed, and ultimately accepted, is if the Americans had finished.
“It just flashed into my mind: in order to appeal, you’ve got to finish the race,” Felix said, then turning to the others, adding, “These ladies did such an amazing job uplifting me.”
Instant replay showed what happened: as Felix was about to enter the exchange zone, a Brazilian runner in the next lane, bumped her.
Formally: Felix’s progress was impeded by contact.
“If you think about it,” Gardner said, “we are going about 20 mph, so if a foreign object comes in front and throws off your momentum, that’s going to mess up a hand-off.”
All that set up the do-over, at 7 p.m. sharp.
Easy. Weird. Fun.
Immediately afterward, Bartoletta — who had won gold in the women’s long jump Thursday night — got her medal. That made for a happy scene.
As for everything else: less drama, maybe, going forward?
“We all,” Allyson Felix said, laughing, “agree with that.”
A new Olympic record....Congrats!
You can frame this pic.....Excellent picture.
Ashton :aktion033
Only the THIRD man ever to repeat as Olympic decathlon champion.....Congrats!
Usain Bolt is in the house!
