The United States has been represented by its athletes in the Rio Olympics 2016, and many of the athletes have taken home a gold medal. One of these athletes, Ryan Lochte, received a gold medal for the men’s 4x200 freestyle relay along with 3 other U.S. swimmers. It was an accomplishment for the swimmers and gave pride to their country.
After this, the swimmers unfortunately reported that they were held at gunpoint and were robbed during a taxi drive. Video footage seemed to somewhat support this story that was claimed by the swimmers, but at the same time, some things did not seem to go together. The Rio police suspected that the swimmers made up this story in order to cover up the swimmer’s actions of vandalism at a gas station. They damaged the bathroom at the gas station and urinated beside the gas station.
There are two sides to this controversy: One side states that Ryan Lochte and the swimmers were actually robbed and that the Rio police is actually trying to protect the country’s reputation, since tourists do go to Rio. The other side advocates that Ryan Lochte made up the story to cover up their story that they were vandalizing the bathroom, which makes him look like he is a victim. Both sides are very possible, but we do know for a fact that the swimmers did vandalize the gas station bathroom and were held responsible.
In terms of whether the swimmers lied or not, I think that they did somewhat tell the truth, but added a little twist to it. They probably wanted to be viewed as victims instead of a vandalizer by mentioning a robbery. Or, they may have been drunk that night and were acting irresponsibly, so they regretted their actions later, which was why they tried to cover it up with the robbery story.
Either way, I think that there was no reason why the swimmers would have lied. The gas station vandalism was going to be revealed even if there was no robbery mentioned, so if the swimmers did lie, they probably did it without thinking thoroughly about the consequences. Lying would have gotten them into a deeper mess and created a bad reputation for them instead of being legendary Olympic gold athletes. However, if they did tell the truth, let’s hope that the investigation will be successful. It is very frightful to be held at gunpoint, and the Rio police’s claims against their story makes things even worse.
I do appreciate that Rio is keeping security in top notch and making sure that all their athletes are safe. We also hope that safety is ensured to the tourists as well!
