As we reported yesterday, claims by Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte that he was robbed at gunpoint along with three fellow teammates has raised loads of speculation as to the veracity of his story, with Brazilian authorities trying to figure out what really happened on Sunday morning.
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One thing that’s not helping matters: the fact that details about the alleged robbery keep changing in significant ways.
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During a brief telephone interview with TODAY‘s Matt Lauer, Lochte contradicted his earlier account of the robbery, which he’d related to TODAY’s Billy Bush earlier this week:
The guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and said ‘get down.’ I was like (puts hands up) I put my hands up. I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet.”
But speaking with Lauer, Lochte said the gun was aimed in his “general direction.”
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He initially told Bush, “We got pulled over in our taxi and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge. No lights, no nothing, just a police badge. They pulled us over, they pulled out their guns.”
But in the version he told Lauer, the taxi wasn’t forced off the road. Instead, they’d stopped the taxi at a gas station to use the bathroom, and that’s when they were robbed.
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Speaking to Bob Costas, Lauer confirmed the story had changed:
“When he talked to me tonight, he said, ‘that’s when the guy pointed the gun in my direction and cocked it.’ And I pointedly said to him, ‘you had said before it was placed on your forehead and cocked.’ He said, ‘No, that’s not exactly what happened.’ And I think he feels it was more of a traumatic mis-characterization. I think people listening at home might feel that was embellishment at the time, but that’s up to people to decide.”
As BBC News reports, CCTV footage featuring the four swimmers — Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Jack Conger, and Gunnar Bentz — has become key evidence in the investigation, particularly since the athletes appear totally relaxed as they pass through a metal detector and take items from their pockets.
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As one Brazilian judge noted, “They arrived with their psychological and physical integrity unshaken.”
Lochte is currently back in the states, but, as CNN reports, teammates Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight from Rio de Janeiro to the United States on Wednesday night. They’ve been ordered to stay in Brazil for questioning as authorities try to make sense of the various claims. and have been ordered to stay in Brazil.
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Lochte’s attorney Jeff Ostrow thinks the athletes are being unfairly scrutinized and taken advantage of by Brazilian police, telling CNN:
When you have one of America’s athletes who comes out and said something happened to him that happens to people there every single day, that doesn’t look good for a country trying to have a successful Olympics.”
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Nevertheless, perhaps the shadiest aspect of this unwieldy story is the following soundbite by Billy Bush, explaining why he ultimately believes Lochte:
I spoke to him about four hours after he got into Olympic Village — or five hours — they’ve been out all night long,” he said. “He’s not the kind that can weave a brilliant tale when he’s hasn’t been out all night long, pardon me. (Emphasis ours.) The fact that he told this story so mellifluously makes me think, well, he could not have invented the whole thing.”
ingyaom
Hasn’t this guy always been kind of a tool?
Mo Bro
Since this article has zero relevance to gay issues, I’ll proffer the following:
Obviously he’s been reading the Clinton playbook and believes he can lie about anything and get away with it as long as his fans believe it’s gospel.
Low Country Boy
@Mo Bro: The Clinton playbook? Lol! You must mean Trump!
DDstar1me
@Mo Bro …or..or? he could be just as crazy as Trump and be lying knowing full well that his story can be fact-checked by the NFL…oops. I mean the authorities.
Paco
Turns out it was a lie. Surveillance video has surfaced showing one of the swimmers fighting with a gas station security guard and breaking down a bathroom door. The guard pulled a gun on them to keep them from leaving.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ryan-lochte-rio-robbery_us_57b5c16ee4b095b2f542b9f6
Joe T
@Mo Bro: Clinton? Trump has done nothing buy lie time and time again. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. There are mountains of video and other evidence of his lies. And who cares of this story has “zero relevance to gay issues”. I’m horrified that you would even a tiny bit think Trump would be great as President. As much as you seem to be all about gay issues, you would think you’d be smart enough to realize that having Trump in the WH would be devastating to everyone including gays. You need to actually do some real research.
gary69mike
Cute as hell but not too bright. Didn’t he do something stupid at the last Olympics? Or was he being interviewed and it was like interviewing a wall. Or both? I’d take Nathan Adrian any day. And then there is Chris Mears… Gorgeous!
MinnesotaNotNice
Ryan Lochte is such a douchebag. Failed reality show star and a distant #2 behind Michael Phelps in the pool. How sad and pathetic to be in constant need of love and approval.
Blackceo
So he and his little frat boy buddies thought they could blame their misbehaviors on some brown people and get away with it. Stupidity and privilege at its best. Meanwhile, people are harping on Gabby Douglas because she didn’t put her hand over her heart during the National Anthem. This is why so many in other countries hate Americans.
dwes09
I’ll add a bit to the tide of excoriation “Mo Bro” is reaping:
It is always amusing to see the lies of the log cabiners. CLAIMING that Hillary has lied about things is not at all the same as the mountain of evidence about the lies Trump tells on a daily basis. The right wing seems to all be living in the past and they forget that when things are captured in digital media, you cannot later claim they were not said. When context is captured, you cannot claim a soundbite was misunderstood.
This is not rocket science, but it is clearly too complex for you folks.