Nine Australian athletes have been charged with falsifying a document after tampering with their accreditation to attend the Australia versus Serbia Olympic Basketball semifinal last night.
The athletes were sent to the Venue Operations office at the Carioca Arena at approximately 7pm, then moved to the Olympic Park police station, and the issue was eventually resolved at the State Major Events Court.
Australia’s Deputy Chef de Mission Fiona de Jong came up with a resolution and presented it to the Brazilian authorities. Per her suggestion, nine athletes were charged with falsifying a document (and a tenth, cyclist Matthew Glaetzer, was detained as a witness). After speaking with a judge and giving their testimony, the athletes returned to the Olympic Village at 5:30 am.
The athletes were charged 10,000 real (about $3,120 USD) apiece as a fine and given a two year good behavior bond. After two years, any record of the proceeding will be expunged. The fined athletes are:
- Ashlee Ankudinoff – cycling
- Melissa Hoskins – cycling
- Ed Jenkins – rugby
- Alec Potts – archery
- Ryan Tyack – archery
- Olympia Aldersey – rowing
- Fiona Albert – rowing
- Lucy Stephan – rowing
- Simon Orchard – hockey
The athletes’ passports will be held by the court until their pay the fine, at which point they will be free to leave the country.
The Australian Olympic Committee is going to pay the fines on the athletes’ behalf.
According to De Jong, the Australian Olympic Committee has “launched an internal investigation as to who was responsible for not adhering to the accreditation rules.”
I’m sure there tons of empty seats anyway… They should have just tried to fill every stadium with free seats
Maybe they should use all of the money collected from the fines to help offset the Paralympics, since they are 61 million dollars shoet of he budget to fund the games. What a horribly desperate situation.
Brazil literally does not care at all about punishing any real criminals in the city. At the moment, they are only concerned with getting as much money out of and using the athletes as examples to show they are “cleaning up their city”. That place is a joke.
Why are athletes not allowed to attend events their nation is competing in for free? Seems odd.
Read HULKSWIM’s reply to NOSTRAMUS’s post above … There are over 11,000 athletes in Rio … It would be impossible to give athletes total access to events
There are not over 11000 athletes in Rio from one or the other of those two countries.
Shakedown
Why are the athletes not allowed to attend competitions their country is competing in? Seems like there are a lot of stupid rules (and stupid people) at this Olympics. Can’t wait for this fiasco to be over.
there are 11,551 athletes in Rio. they are all supposed to be given carte blanche to enter any arena? that’d be something.
But just about every before has tons of open seats… Even for medal matches. I don’t see why they couldn’t let athletes to more events.
this is true and there’s probably a legit way to go about getting into those empty arenas.
the soccer venue wasn’t empty tonight. you cool with a few hundred athletes squeezing in? if so, look up the Hillsborough incident. it can be quite disasterous.
you mean when Brasil was playing for the gold? The Track and field venue was only at 40 percent. A few free tickets to fill those seats would cost nothing but show that this country is more than just soccer.
That doesn’t mean that you’ll have all 11,551 athletes attend each and every event. Geez.
They could give tickets to everyone and the athletics stadium would still be less than half full.
As for the fines, they are totally ridiculous. I wonder where the money ends up from these draconian fines? Hmmm
Rio is broke The IOC is limiting their funding. Where is the money going? We will never know. Since when is Judo a charity?
even a couple hundred in a full arena can be a disaster. and there are legit ways to go about getting in.
Teams are given a certain amount of “complimentary tickets” daily for events involving their country. For sports like Track & basketball, there will never be enough to satisfy demand. IF you are from the same sport then this will not apply.
It’s not about the rules, It’s the shakedown–er fines. These kids could just have been turned away and the coaches notified.
Wow they really like taking people’s passports
it’s a pretty smart maneuver on their sport. it’s a fluid population that can take off and avoid any repercussions.
i mean, one could, in theory, vandalize a gas station, let his buddies pay the security to get outta there before the cops arrive, make up some some nonsense story in the morning to their mother and then repeat it when the story goes global on tv and to the authorities, then hop on a plane and never pay a dime in penalties for lying to the police. and as long as you never go back to Brazil, you are cool.
in theory. as an example.
on their *part
Just stop, Hulk.
Hulk, you are with Attila, we get your point, please stop now.
the funny thing is attila and i were at each others throats before this over katinka. we happen to be largely on the same side here.
but i guess i’m not cool with our athletes (i’m a coach) acting like they can do whatever they’d like and it will get swept under the rug- wanna kick a sign? go for it… its just crappy brazil, who cares? wanna sneak into venues by altering your credentials? sure! nevermind safety or capacity issues- you are special!!!
is that how you are coachijg your kids if you are a coach? i sure hope not.
Brasil did not sell anywhere near the tickets they thought they would. Empty seats. The show is almost over so the foreign money is leaving. Grab what’s left. The atheletes did the wrong thing, yes. Doe’s the punishment fit the “crime”? no. I see your point coach, but what “lesson” is being learned here?
Wait until all party’s tell their stories without duress. do not encourage a rush to judgement based on the “facts” presented from one side. Coach.
That’s because everyone wants to leave.
Distorted humans , how can u do such things to Athletes ? its worse than ridiculous .
yes, athletes are a special, protected class, above the law, how do they not see that???
Would you have taken the same position if this had been the Chicago Olympics and the Americans had done this to 9 third world athletes?
the same way? fiddling with credentials to get access to events is an issue as i’ve stated below. there are 11k athletes in Rio. they have rules for a reason. people should follow them. i’m sorry if that makes me sound like a prude but if 200 athletes snuck into the soccer venue tonight there’d have been serious safety issues. that place was packed. and while I don’t know the situation of this venue, i would imagine they had to fiddle with them because they couldn’t get tickets through the aussies and it was sold out. and even if it was empty, it’s not the way to do things.
Half the Dynamo Swim Club did this in Atlanta. Bench seating and squeezed their skinny bums into place.
The USA dosen’t need the money. Rio is broke. Do the math.
All of these situations are beyond ridiculous. Athletes who compete at the highest level of competition in their sport should be able to support fellow countrymen/women.