French swimmer William Meynard arrested for narcotics, bribery in Rio

French sprinter William Meynard, a 2011 World Champs bronze medalist, was arrested on Sunday morning in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Meynard, 26, was caught in the World Cup host city with a cigarette and two bars of cannabis, according to Brazil’s SporTV. SporTV also reports that Meynard tried to offer the Brazilian officers money to let him go.

Meynard himself is a police officer in France, and trains with Team France Police, according to this personality profile in the French publication La Voix Du Nord from last September. SporTV’s sister channel Extra reports that Meynard told the Brazilian cops that in France he would have been asked for money to get out a similar arrest situation.

He was ultimately arrested for both possession of narcotics and bribery.

The freestyler won a bronze medal at the Shanghai World Champs in 2011, going 48.00, but hasn’t been able to repeat that kind of success on the international stage since. He took a break from the pool this year, SporTV notes, and he returned for French nationals only to miss the top 15 in the 50 free, the only event he swam.

Already seeming to slide quite a bit time-wise from his great 2011 season, Meynard now looks like he’ll have an even steeper climb to jump back onto the French relays for international competition.

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Bossanova
9 years ago

herb is the healing of the nation

Truth
9 years ago

First, it’s not illegal everywhere.

Secondly, in regards to the study, I attended one of the major NCAA programs, I will not say which but it was either Stanford, Cal, Texas, Auburn, Florida or Arizona.

In so I can tell you the actual Olympians and Olympic medalist on the team/pros that trained with their ALL smoked weed in the Olympic year.

BTW I would not day it would be equal to prohibit alcohol in comparison to weed. Weed does not pose any health effects whatsoever. Alcohol on the other hand can….

JP
Reply to  Truth
9 years ago

Again, it doesn’t matter if it’s not illegal everywhere.

It was illegal and he got caught with it. Whether or not it’s harmless or anybody does it, or whatever totally non sequitur argument you can make is an absolutely moot point. Getting caught with something illegal is just plain stupid.

ERVINFORTHEWIN
9 years ago

One must wonder why does he do that in Brazil instead of Holland ! i live next to Holland ! it’s safe and available legally ! No problem , no stress , no bribing !

Billy
9 years ago

Having lived in Brazil and knowing how corrupt the entire society and the police are, he’ll buy his way out. He probably did not offer the cops enough money.

It’s World Cup time and the bribe rates must have gone up!

ERVINFORTHEWIN
Reply to  Billy
9 years ago

probably close to truth ! well stated

Franz
Reply to  Billy
9 years ago

Sometimes you find an honest cop. At these times, it is important to have a good lawyer, because Brazilian jails are terrible.

JP
9 years ago

It’s still illegal whether or not “everybody does it.”

ERVINFORTHEWIN
Reply to  JP
9 years ago

it’s time that alcohol get illegal as well to make the balance even

bo
9 years ago

Title should be French Cop Arrested

Rich
9 years ago

Christ.

Edit the the heading to

FRENCH SWIMMER WILLIAM MEYNARD ARRESTED FOR “NARCOTICS”, BRIBERY IN RIO

It’s 2014. Every Olympic swimmer I’ve met smokes weed. Get over it.

liquidassets
Reply to  Rich
9 years ago

Hmm would be interesting to see a poll of Olympic swimmers vs. Olympic medalists vs. Olympic Trials qualifiers vs. Trials finalists to see how much of a performance hinderer or enhancer weed is overall.

Admin
Reply to  liquidassets
9 years ago

liquidassets – would be nearly impossible to run that study. Would need such a huge number of athletes to participate…would never happen. Probably aren’t enough even if everyone participated, and even then, best you could do is correlational. There’s so many different variables to account for in sports, that a correlations study wouldn’t be very valuable at all.

Anecdotally, I think we can all figure out what the numbers would bare out, however.

Josh Davis
Reply to  Rich
9 years ago

You must not have met very many.

Rich
Reply to  Josh Davis
9 years ago

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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