Gold medalists being pulled off a plane by Brazil. Stories that might not add up. But why make up the story in the first place? Is it just a ploy by a butt-hurt by widely acknowledged corrupt law enforcement body looking for revenge? What are the international implications?
Just a perfect he said/she said with so many layers. What are your thoughts? Mine are, I think the Olympians are full of it, but again, why make up the story?
They were (allegedly) late getting back to the village. Instead of admitting to blowing hookers and fucking up with drugs, they said (generically) that they were ‘HELD UP’.
This is possible. But I feel there’s another series of events that’s also possible. Two Olympic athletes got mugged in a city which has a really high rate of street crime. The city is under a spotlight for not handling the Olympics well. The local police, which has a reputation for being corrupt, decide that a story about two athletes being robbed would be bad publicity. So they concoct a story to discredit the athletes and claim the crimes never happened.
Because the US Olympic team is, uh, a team? And this is not the behaviour expected of team members? Plus, it’s a national representative team, so this behaviour is embarrassing to more than themselves?
As for the Brazilian police trying to deny that muggings happen in Rio, I don’t think they’d bother. It would be like trying to deny that it rains in Ireland, or that it gets hot in the Gulf. But what they may be getting shirty about is the detail involving a police badge. They may think the mugging story is a fabrication, and the police badge bit makes it a pejorative fabrication. Or, worse, they may think that the story and the police badge bit in particular are true, and they need to be seen to take action.
FWIW, just want to point out that the two theories being floated here - team members trying to avoid embarrassment for themselves/the team, Brazilian police trying to avoid embarrassment for the force - are not mutually exclusive. There could be elements of both at work.
Can I just point out how much the TV coverage has sounded like a rape allegation?
‘Yeah, he said he underwent a traumatic experience – but just look at this footage of him not long after, when he seemed happy and relaxed! And the details of the story changed between tellings – so let’s speculate as to why he would’ve made the whole thing up, claiming to be a victim of assault instead of just admitting he was out looking for a good time and did something embarrassing! So we all get why the police would want to detain the accuser, right?’
I believe they also sign a contract saying how they will act during the Olympics. Or at least I’ve seen those contracts floating around. I do think it’s to keep the younger ones from screwing up, I think the one I saw for swimming a few years ago said no alcohol.
I have no idea what happened, but I can imagine coming back a couple of hours later and laughing about it. I know guys can be that way, all the stupid stuff I used to do and be scared shitless a couple of hours later we would be laughing about how stupid and lucky we were.
I can imagine them getting robbed, going out and doing whatever for a couple of hours and coming backing being all giddy and laughing about it. Lochte doesn’t strike me as the brightest jellyfish in the sea.
I am loving this whole story in a prurient way, because Ryan Lochte is at the center and he is SUCH an odd duck to begin with. The other piece that seems bizarre is that coverage I’ve seen appears to start with HIS MOM saying he was robbed at gunpoint, which sounds like a random thing for her to make up out of whole cloth – yet officials first denied her story, and then did a pivot to report on Ryan Lochte’s account of the events.
I like to imagine the other three guys involved saying to themselves “Man, what was I even THINKING to go out with Ryan Lochte?”
We’re talking a city/area where a cop can get shot for just driving up the wrong street; some of those hillside communities are almost countries unto themselves. Could it happen? Yeah. But from the beginning it seemed a little hokey to me. They were just too calm and too uninjured. And since the claim seems to have been cops were involved ------- none of this surprises me.
The thing about this that bugs me is, if these guys were making up the whole story, why in the world would they include the detail about the cops and badges? If all they wanted to do was cover up their own behavior that night, wouldn’t it be vastly simpler to say masked or unidentifiable gunmen robbed them? Then, the police shrug and say, “Shit happens, we’ll probably never find them” and nobody investigates further. The Olympians get their sympathy and everyone goes home. But with this story, police are basically forced to be involved in a serious way.
Granted, we’re talking about young drunk people, but it really just doesn’t sound like a smart cover story if it was made up.
No, but it does kind of sound like the dumb sort of story a drunk person would make up trying to cover for themselves, and than really regret that they had to keep it going the next day when they sobered up. Lots of unnecessary, grandiose detail.
Yea, that seems perfectly plausible. And generally speaking I think any sort evidence based on the idea that someone wasn’t “acting right” is pretty silly. People react to stressful situations in all sorts of weird and ideosyncratic ways.
But my understanding was the main evidence they were not mugged was that they were still in possession of most of their valuables (watches, smartphones, etc). That does make the story seem pretty sketchy.
Right, I would think if someone was going to make up a story about being robbed, it would just be “some guys in masks”, maybe some extra details about how big or fast they were, or how many weapons they had, but I wouldn’t think a made up story would include a police badge. Their story is believable to me, as is that they were laughing and smiling later, since no one got hurt and they they’re overall having a good time in Rio.
Does anyone know the punishment for filing a false report in Brazil? It seems extreme to me for the guys to have their passports taken and not allowed to leave the country for reporting on a robbery.
I have no idea what happened, and I’ve barely been paying attention to the Olympics. But I asked a co-worker in Rio today what was going on, and he said there were news reports that the guys’ girlfriends were with them, and they needed a way to cover up for being out late, presumably with other women.
Does anyone know if athlete’s SOs commonly travel with them to the Olympics?
But, I also agree that making up the detail about the police badge seems like an unnecessary embellishment, but I guess when you’re drunk lots of things seem like a good idea.
I wonder about this. Did this start with Lochte making up something to tell his mother, that then spun out of control? On the other hand, the man is 32 years old, so he shouldn’t need to explain himself to Mom.
And I remember interviews with him during the London Games; he came off as such a frat boy dude. It’s hard to take him seriously. But he has seven individual medals and twelve total. That’s more than most people, in any sport. If he wasn’t competing against Michael Phelps, he would be a lot more famous.
They did get robbed that night. (It’s common. Everyone I know that lives in Rio or Sao Paulo has been robbed at gunpoint or knife point while they have lived there, and many of the people that I know that regularly visit there as well.)
Lochte embellished the telling of his story to his mom, his coaches, anybody he told. (This is common as well, people like to embellish stories where they are in danger, etc.)
The local government doesn’t give a shit about the filing of a false police report, even if it was done. They are concerned about the international reputation of the country. There is so much crime that goes uninvestigated that they are even investigating this is laughable.
This will end with a he said/he said and eventually the story will die out.
Why do you think this was made up? Have you ever been to Brazil. In Rio and Sao Paulo, it is a free for all. There are numerous fake police around. It is a common ruse to rob unsuspecting tourists, etc.
Ryan Lochte is apparently dating Kayla Rae Reid, a Playboy Playmate, and she was in Rio. I can’t find out if the others have girlfriends that were with them, but the other swimmers aren’t as famous so there’s not as much info on them.
It is plausible that they were at a brothel or somewhere they shouldn’t be and were robbed, and made up stories so that their girlfriends wouldn’t get upset. But I think the news first came out when Lochte called his mom soon after it happened, and he’d have no reason to do that for a lie.
The story is a little strange, like why were only wallets taken and nothing else, but nothing about their story sounds unbelievable. I watched the surveillance video of them arriving back at the Olympic village, and they don’t appear to be “joking around”, they just aren’t crying and shaking.
Right, it’s much more plausible to me that a man had a bad experience and was shaken up and called his mom who would comfort him, rather than a grown man making up some excuse for his mom. If I was robbed at gunpoint and was shaken up I’d probably call my mom.
And he isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, so if he’s lying it should be evident pretty soon, I wouldn’t think he’d be able to stay too consistent. There have been some inconsistencies, but minor ones that sound plausible for someone who went through a scary experience after partying.
@mattgutmanABC #BREAKING Brazil sources: #RyanLochte + 3 swimmers fabricated robbery story. Video shows swimmer “fighting” w/security at gas station @GMA