Australian athletes arrested in Rio 6

Ten of the Australian athletes didn’t have accreditation to be in that part of the venue.

However, Australia’s chef de mission Kitty Chiller says the athletes knew their accreditations had been tampered with ahead of trying to enter an Olympic venue to watch the Boomers’ basketball semi-final on Friday night (local time).

The athletes are from the Australian team and they are now being questioned by police.

But the AOC said it would pay the fines and hoped the athletes would be able to leave Rio with the rest of the Australian team on Monday night. The group remained at the venue until 9pm when they were moved to the Olympic Park police station.

“The AOC has launched an internal investigation as to who was responsible for not adhering to the accreditation rules”.

She apologised to the court and explained that the athletes were supporting their teammates, they were not attempting to defraud anyone, no-one had suffered a material loss and no-one was harmed as a result of the incident.

During an all-night court session, the athletes were offered the chance to have charges dropped in exchange for the fines, with their passports being kept until payment is made, Australian team spokesman Mike Tancred said. “Nobody has been arrested and we will provide you with a detailed statement when those discussions have advanced”.

Among the athletes were rugby sevens captain Ed Jenkins, cyclist Matthew Glaetzer, archer Alec Potts as well as rowers Fiona Albert and Lucy Stephen.

It comes after the International Olympic Committee and Rio police launched a crackdown on accreditations in the wake of the Ryan Lochte controversy earlier this week when the U.S. swimmer said he had been held at gunpoint and robbed.

De Jong was diplomatic.

The incident follows outrage in Brazil after four U.S. swimmers including Ryan Lochte – one of America’s most decorated swimmers – were found to have lied about an armed robbery during the Rio Olympics.