You have to hand it to Ryan Lochte — it takes something special to overshadow the Olympic Games, and possibly fabricating a story about having a gun pointed at your head in an alleged taxi “robbery” with three teammates (James Feigen, Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz) certainly fits the bill.
Globo recently released surveillance footage of the American swimmers at a Rio gas station, and yeah, there doesn’t appear to be a robbery. In fact, the footage is pretty boring with the swimmers drunkenly exiting a gas station and getting stopped in their taxi:
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The USA Today has further details about that now-infamous night:
Lochte and U.S. teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen went to a gas station at about 6 a.m. Sunday, the official said, and broke a door to an outside bathroom when they couldn’t get in.
They were confronted by an armed security guard, but he did not point the gun at the athletes, the official said.
A manager asked the swimmers to pay for the broken door and they gave him an undisclosed amount of money, the official said.
ABC News has information on the money exchanged in the incident:
As the police investigation continues into the alleged robbery of four U.S. Olympic swimmers in Rio, a Brazilian police source told ABC News that “one of the swimmers was seen on CCTV footage breaking down the door to the bathroom at [a] gas station and fighting with a security guard” on the night of the incident.
Police told ABC News that the swimmers “offered 100 reals and $20” to compensate for the damage.
