U.S. Olympic swimmers Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger boarded a flight to the U.S. on Thursday night, a day after Brazilian authorities pulled them off a plane amid a bizzare, high-profile dispute over an incident early Sunday morning involving the two swimmers and teammates Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen. Lochte is already in the U.S. and Feigen "provided a revised statement [to Brazilian police] this evening with the hope of securing the release of his passport as soon as possible," said U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun.
Lochte is sticking to his story that he and his teammates were robbed at gunpoint, but Brazilian police say they made the story up. "We saw our city stained by a fantastical version [of the truth],” Rio de Janeiro police chief Fernando Veloso said Thursday. Surveillance camera footage released on Brazilian TV did not clear anything up, much less why Brazil turned this into an international incident, as NBC News' Keir Simmons explained Thursday:
Blackmun said that USOC officials have not seen the "full statements" from Bentz and Conger, but "as we understand it, the four athletes left France House early in the morning of August 14 in a taxi headed to the Olympic Village. They stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, where one of the athletes committed an act of vandalism. An argument ensued between the athletes and two armed gas station security staff, who displayed their weapons, ordered the athletes from their vehicle and demanded the athletes provide a monetary payment. Once the security officials received money from the athletes, the athletes were allowed to leave." USA Swimming Executive Director Chuck Wielgus promised a "thorough review of the incident."
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