Shades of Ryan Lochte? Canadian Olympic athlete and manager misbehave in South Korea

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      What happens when a bunch of hard-news CBC journalists are dispatched to cover the Winter Olympics?

      Unfortunately for the Canadian Olympic Committee, these journalists occasionally stumble across real news.

      CBC senior correspondent Susan Ormiston, for example, has tweeted that a Canadian athlete and a manager have been "arrested for stealing a car and driving drunk" in Pyeongchang.

      At first, the athlete's name was not released, but it didn't stay confidential for very long.

      Later, CBC's Diana Swain revealed that the athlete was Canadian ski cross racer Dave Duncan. He's a 35-year-old resident of Whistler, B.C.

      Duncan has apologized for showing "poor judgement". Also in the vehicle was his wife, Maja, and the driver, Canadian technical coach Willy Raine.

      Raine's mother is Nancy Greene Raine, an Olympic gold and silver medallist and Conservative senator. She was voted as Canada’s female athlete of the 20th century by the Canadian Press and Broadcast News.

      In South Korea, passengers can be charged for allowing someone to drive while intoxicated.

      Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Overholt has confirmed that Canadians were arrested in South Korea and that athlete Dave Duncan and coach Willy Raine have apologized.

      There's an aphorism in journalism that goes something like this: "News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is public relations."

      By this definition, there's been a lot of public relations coming out of South Korea over the past two weeks.

      But every once in a while, some real news creeps out, at least in the sense of what somebody doesn't want printed.

      That occurred in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Summer Olympics after American swimmer and 12-time Olympic medallist Ryan Lochte claimed that he and three teammates were robbed at a gas station.

      It turned out that Lochte and his friends had committed vandalism. One of the U.S. swimmers reportedly urinated outside the bathroom, causing a confrontation with security officers.

      Lochte ended up being charged with making a false claim of robbery, for which he later apologized. Last year, the charges were dismissed.

       

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