The hundreds of bags of athletes and tourists who caked into Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics all heard the warnings. There were added than 300 artery crimes a day in Rio state––an 85% acceleration from 2012––and the flood of visitors offered abounding targets for muggers, bag-snatchers and worse. Still, the blackmail acquainted added acute to abounding afterwards U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte and three teammates were captivated up at gunpoint on their way aback from a affair aboriginal Sunday.
“It’s actual scary,” says Dalma Sebestyen, a swimmer from Hungary. She had planned to appointment the Christ the Redeemer bronze on Monday with some friends, but says she put off the cruise out of affair afterward the armed robbery.
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The adventure occurred Sunday night, afterwards Lochte and teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen larboard a affair Sunday at France House in the Lagoa neighborhood, a about 40 minute drive from Olympic Park. They took a auto at about 4:30 a.m. to acknowledgment to the Olympic Apple and were pulled over by what they anticipation were police. According to Lochte, who declared the affliction to NBC News, the men accepted that the athletes get on the arena and abandonment their wallets. Lochte said that he initially refused, bidding one of the men to put a gun to his forehead and erect the trigger. All four were unhurt.
The audacious robbery of such a high-profile amateur has annoyed athletes and spectactors alike. Some delegations, already anxious about aegis afore the incident, went on college alert. The Australian Olympic Board is not acceptance its 422 athletes to roam Ipanema or Copacabana beaches — two accepted day-tripper areas — afterwards 6 p.m. The Australians are not declared to abrasion their aggregation uniforms afterwards 6 p.m., or biking about Rio by foot. They’ve been told to constrict their amateur accreditation cards in their shirts. The U.S. Olympic board beneath to detail specifics of its aegis protocols but says that it has common them to associates of Aggregation USA.
Others were on bend before. Dianna Mann, the mother of U.S. baptize polo amateur John Mann, says she was about victimized Wednesday in ample daylight. Afterwards watching her son comedy at the Maria Lenk amphitheater in Olympic Park, Mann was bridge the artery alongside a advance from the baptize polo alliance and her Brazilian host, at whose home Mann was blockage until her ancestors arrived, aback addition affective her. “I was accosted; this man pulled my arm, flashed a brand and said he was activity to arrest me for admission scalping,” Mann said Sunday, as account of the Lochte robbery was authoritative its way through Olympic Park. “I didn’t accept any tickets on me of any kind. I spun out of his grasp, and he affective me again. My Brazilian host adored me; she actually physically blocked his anatomy to acquiesce me to get away, and started babble at him in Portuguese.”
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Mann says that aback she and her host alerted National Force admiral nearby, the aggressive brand brought in to addition aegis at venues, the man affected to attending at his buzz and say that he had mistaken Mann for addition else. “The National Force couldn’t absolutely do anything,” she says, “they accept bigger things to anguish about.”
Mann has aback become extra-vigilant: she won’t adventure above the Olympic amphitheater after her Brazilian host and takes the added big-ticket bus curve for Olympic admission holders only. At the Park, she and her ancestors were decked out in red, white and dejected T-shirts with the stars and stripes, but brought a change of clothes and planned to about-face afore abrogation the defended Olympic Park to acknowledgment home.
Craig Madzinski, a accessory of U.S. men’s basketball drillmaster Mike Krzyzewski, is demography analogously all-encompassing precautions. During a chat in Olympic Park, he wore two pairs of shorts and agitated two corpuscle phones, one a non-working copy that he kept in his aback abridged to abandonment to abeyant muggers, and a absolute one which he kept in his close shorts. He additionally kept money hidden in his shoe. A aerial academy basketball coach, he’s formed in axial Africa and Burundi, and says it’s important to be ready. “I’m consistently able it somebody wants to booty something, I accept article to accord them,” he says.
For the Anderson ancestors from Livermore, Calif., actuality safe in Rio agency the associate system. “We don’t go anywhere alone,” says Katherine Anderson, a sales adumbrative who came to the Games with her husband, her babe and son, and her daughter’s friend. The girls additionally wore emergency whistles about their necks. For all their preparation, however, the ancestors has had a airy experience. “We accept not acquainted threatened at all, or afraid about security,” she says. “We ride the busline everywhere and feel actual safe. You aloof accept to be observant.”
Others acquainted the aforementioned way. “We’ve been out walking about until two in the morning,” says Dan Giblin of Jacksonville, Fla., who is in Rio with his wife, Rita. “There is bags of brand attendance out there. It’s bad, yes, but in big cities, that’s abominably the way the apple is appropriate now.”
That attitude was echoed by athletes in the Olympic Apple Monday. “Something like this can appear anywhere in the world, at any time,” says Hamish Bond, a rower from New Zealand. “You can acquisition a aggravate in a haystack anywhere.” While Bond has followed agreement and arrested in with aggregation administration aback abrogation the village, the robbery has not adapted his affairs to analyze Rio. “You can’t stop active your activity aloof because Ryan Lochte got robbed,” he says.
“You accept to acquaintance the city,” says Jamial Rolle, a 100-m sprinter from the Bahamas. “But this is activity to accomplish me added cautious, that’s for sure.”
