AOC disciplinary committee says athletes involved in ticket scam shouldn’t face further punishment

AN AOC disciplinary committee charged with looking into the misuse of accreditation cards at the Rio Olympics says the Australians involved have suffered enough.

Fiona de Jong, the Australian Olympic Committee secretary-general, addresses the media in Rio after the accreditation scandal. Picture: AP Photo

A DISCIPLINARY Committee appointed by the Australian Olympic Committee to look into the misuse of accreditation cards by athletes and officials at the Rio Olympics says the Australians involved have suffered enough and shouldn’t face further punishment.

During the Games nine Australian athletes were detained by police and had their passports confiscated in the ‘ticket-gate’ saga after members of the Australian Olympic Team had doctored and misused accreditation cards to gain entry into Rio’s basketball venue to watch the Boomers play.

On Thursday the AOC’s disciplinary commission released its determination — which it will now forward to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — in which it says the nine athletes involved had “suffered disproportionately” by having a two-year good behaviour bond placed beside their name.

The AOC will join the IOC in requesting any criminal record — and that two-year good behaviour bond — against those involved in the sticker scam is “expunged as soon as possible”.

A confidential report submitted to the AOC also revealed Australia’s Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller learned Athlete Services had printed labels “to enable them to gain access to various venues” — a week before the incident at the Boomers match.

Chiller had expressed her disappointment after learning of the unauthorised practice and warned the practice should immediately cease.

Part of Lachlan Milne’s email to Kitty Chiller.

The confidential report showed that on August 21 it was decided Athlete Services personnel Natalie Cook, Lachlan Milne and Meg Sissian should leave Brazil.

Milne and Cook have since sent Chiller an email to apologise “for their indiscretion and the consequences” the athletes faced.

“I just wanted to send you a note to apologize for the unfortunate circumstances that lead to us leaving Rio early,” wrote Cook, who returned to Canada to be with her family.

“I have been wanting to contact you to give you my sincere apologies for my contribution to the trouble that occurred at the end of the games,” Milne wrote in his email to Chiller.

“I’m not here to offer excuses or blame others but I want you to know that our intentions were only ever to give the most athletes possible the best Olympic experience they could have. Never could I have imagined the outcome that occurred.”

Nat Cook’s email to Kitty Chiller.

Originally published as AOC disciplinary committee says athletes involved in ticket scam shouldn’t face further punishment