RIO DE JANEIRO — The two U.S. swimmers who were abruptly taken off a plane and detained in Rio Wednesday night have now left the country and are headed home.
Scott Blackmun, the U.S. Olympic Committee CEO, said in a statement late Thursday that Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, who had been with Ryan Lochte last Sunday morning when an incident at a local gas station occurred, had their passports returned “and they recently departed Rio.”
A third swimmer, Jimmy Feigen, who had been under a judge’s order since earlier this week to not leave the country, “provided a revised statement this evening with the hope of securing the release of his passport as soon as possible,” Blackmun’s statement said.
Feigen and Lochte were ordered to stay in the country, though that order came after Lochte had already returned to the U.S.
Police on Thursday said their investigation revealed the swimmers fabricated the story about being pulled over by men dressed as police and robbed at gunpoint.
