Aussie Olympians Escape Added Punishment

(ATR) The 10 Australian athletes detained by Brazilian police during the Rio Games for using false accreditation to watch the Australia-Serbia men’s basketball semifinal have suffered enough.

That’s the decision of a Disciplinary Commission appointed by the Australian Olympic Committee. The three-person panel reached its conclusion after reviewing a comprehensive report into the incident.

The report details how nine of the 10 athletes were charged with both falsifying documents and then using the documents to get into the game. They were released hours later after agreeing to a plea bargain that called for each to pay a fine of R$10,000 ($3,100), which was paid by the AOC. In addition, each athlete entered into a good behavior bond for the next two years.

The Disciplinary Commission found that while the athletes had "breached the disrepute clause" of the Australian Olympic team agreement by using the doctored accreditations, they had "suffered disproportionately" in the criminal process issued against them.

The Commission is calling for the AOC and the IOC to request that the two-year good behavior bond and the record of criminal proceedings be expunged from the records of all nine athletes as soon as possible.

The doctored accreditations were supplied to the athletes by volunteers of the AOC’s Athletes Services. The Athletes Services personnel involved were sent home early from Rio, denying them the opportunity to take part in the closing ceremony, among other perks.

The commission called for no further sanction against the volunteers.

The AOC says both the report and the Disciplinary Commission’s findings have been forwarded to the IOC.

Written by Gerard Farek

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