US swimmer’s money will support sports programs in Rio – USA TODAY
Lochte and three U.S. swimmers said they were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday, with Lochte saying their cab was pulled over by men impersonating police officers.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The money that U.S. swimmer Jimmy Feigen must pay to resolve his legal cases in Brazil will support local sports programs through Instituto Reação, a non-governmental organization based in Rio.
Feigen was ordered by judge Tula Correa de Mello to pay 35,000 Brazilian reais (about $11,000 USD) to avoid having charges pressed against him, Globo TV reported. Feigen was with Ryan Lochte and two other U.S. swimmers when the said they were robbed at gunpoint by men who held up their taxi early Sunday morning. Rio police said the story was fabricated and that the swimmers vandalized a gas station.
Feigen’s lawyer, Breno Melaragno Costa, said the funds would go to Instituto Reação, started by Brazilian judoka and Olympic bronze medalist Flávio Canto. The institute helps children in two of Rio’s most infamous favelas – low-income neighborhoods where government services are minimal and gangs are usually the dominant force. About a quarter of Rio’s 6.5 million people live in favelas spread around the city.
One of those being served by Instituto Reação is called Rocinha, where 100,000 people are packed in along an ocean-facing mountainside. The other is called the “City of God.”
The foundation enjoyed its ultimate success when one of its graduates, Rafeala Silva, won Brazil’s first gold of the 2016 Rio Games, completing an incomprehensible journey from the City of God to the top of an Olympic medal platform.
Silva said there were times growing up where she and her friends couldn’t go outside in the middle of the afternoon because of the raging gunfire all around them.
“We couldn’t play in the streets like any child could,” she said. “We saw bandits fleeing, police raiding houses.”
On the days they could go out, the only diversion was an all-male youth soccer team, dance classes, or the foundation’s judo classes. So Silva signed up and quickly rose through the ranks. As her friends were joining drug cartels in City of God, made famous by a 2002 movie by the same name, she kept training.
Eventually, she got some minor scholarships and started competing professionally. She made the 2012 London Olympics but lost in the early rounds after using a move that had recently been prohibited. But she came back this year and won her gold in front of her people. And she hopes her ability to escape Rio’s favelas, with some help from the foundation, will show others they can do the same.
“I still have family and relatives who live in the City of God. There’s always the small kids that ask my aunts when I’m coming back,” she said. “If I can inspire them to go to school, to attend a university…that is my main objective.”
Leriana Figueiredo, director of the institute, also spoke of the potential to change lives.
“This shows that yes, we can dream and we can achieve dreams. Now we have to invest in these new talents, to invest in their education.”
Contributing: Taylor Barnes
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