Does the punishment handed to Aussie swimmers fit the ‘crime’?

TWO Australian swimmers have been banned from the closing ceremony after nights out in Rio. Are you serious?

Should Emma McKeon be punished so heavily?

OPINION

I’VE had a few run-ins with authority over the years. Some may have even called me a brat (or less pleasant words) on the odd occasion.

Being told what to do — or how to live — isn’t my favourite thing in the world.

Everything from superannuation (why should the government tell me how to save for my future!) to social algorithms that decide what sits at the top of my Facebook and Twitter feeds (don’t tell me what I’m interested in!) can set me off.

So I was initially indignant when I read two Australian swimmers had been banned from the closing ceremony at the Olympics after a night out in Copacabana.

The full details are here but in short, Josh Palmer and Emma McKeon broke rules put in place by the Australian Olympic Committee to protect our athletes’ safety while in Rio.

Palmer appears to have had an all-nighter without telling anyone. McKeon failed to inform swim team officials she was going to crash at a friend’s hotel instead of making a one-hour taxi ride across town back to the athlete’s village at 2am.

Big deal. That’s not making the top 10 of the craziest things they, me or many of you have done in our lives. It’s just that Kitty Chiller trying to ruin everyone’s day.

Banning them from the closing ceremony, are you kidding me? That’s a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity they’ll never get back. They’re adults, they’re unharmed, what’s the problem?

But when I thought about it for a while and listened to Chiller (who I’ve had breakfast with and isn’t the glory-hogging grouch some people make her out to be) explain the punishment to reporters, my position changed.

If you missed the Australian chef de mission’s message on the situation, this is part of what she said: “This could have ended up a lot worse. I do not want any athlete to put themselves in a position (of risk) … I don’t want to have to call a parent and tell them their child has been robbed, mugged or anything worse … Everything we put in place is not the fun police, it’s not party poopers, it is ensuring their safety remains paramount in their minds as well as ours.”

There are a couple of factors at play here.

Firstly, from what we know about what happened to Palmer (he was apparently forced by thieves to withdraw $1000 cash from an ATM during his night) and several other athletes and tourists during the Olympics, there are some bad eggs in Rio — particularly around Copacabana and Ipanema beaches.

I haven’t run into any trouble personally. The bulk of my two weeks here covering the Games has been spent at Olympic venues, the main media centre or at my accommodation and special buses ferry us between all three spots.

But it’s fair to say travelling to the beaches increases your chances of ending up in a sticky situation.

The other is whether Chiller and the AOC have the right to be telling our adult Olympians what to do.

They’ve worked their whole lives to reach this stage, they’ve all competed to their best of their ability and now they want to cap the experience by partying in a city they may never return to with athletes from their own and other countries they’ll never see again.

But it’s not that simple.

Firstly, the athletes are here on a free ride. If you want to keep enjoying the athlete’s village and the AOC’s hospitality then you have to abide by their rules.

Secondly, you may have finished competing but in a way your behaviour for the rest of the trip is still a reflection on Australia. If you stuff up, the world media is going to report about an Australian athlete stuffing up. The AOC are going to have to answer questions. There is still a responsibility to behave.

From afar the penalty, particularly in McKeon’s case, still seems a bit harsh. These two will suffer enough from the public focus on their situation – not to mention being known in the village as the two athletes responsible for everyone’s new curfew. It’s not too late to let them march.

But at the end of the day all athletes need to realise that a night or two or three in Copacabana just isn’t worth the potential drama.

It might be the difference in the attitude of someone Palmer’s age (25) and mine (31), but having frequented nightclubs everywhere from Ibiza to Cancun to Brooklyn, I can tell you there’s always another party.

Having to let your hair down on this side of the city (which I’ll admit, doesn’t appear to have much of a nightlife from what I’ve seen) isn’t something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. But there are other things you might.