Rio 2016 - Rio street kids holdup sailing Gold medalist at gunpoint

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZL on 22 May 2016 The Spanish sailing federation Real Federación Española de Vela (RFEV) has advised that three members of its Nacra 17 team were held up at gunpoint at Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro.

The incident occurred in the early morning as the team walked to breakfast

2008 Olympic Gold medalist in the Tornado multihull, Fernando Echavarri and crew Tara Pacheco and their coach, former world champion Santi López-Vázquez, were approached by five people armed with two pistols. Fortunately there was no injury, but it seems they were robbed of the electronic devices they were carrying.

Lopez-Vazquez explained after the event that 'there were five children with two pistols. To me they have taken all the basic work that we had at that time. It was a very unpleasant experience. '

'The lack of security is Rio is one of the points of greatest concern to the teams, and in this case were three members of the Spanish team who have suffered the violence that lives in Rio de Janeiro within three months of the start of the Olympic', says RFEV.

The Spanish 470 Olympic team are also based in Rio de Janeiro and will soon be joined by the RS: X and Laser.

'Fernando, Tara and Santi want to forget as quickly as possible what happened and focus solely on training they are doing, with great sights on Olympics', the statement concludes.

It is recommended that teams, fans and media travel by taxi wherever possible in Rio for security reasons.

Usually during an Olympics large portions of the cities are in a security/military lock-down and incidents like the above are rare. However that security umbrella is not in place at present.

On Wednesday two members of the Danish sailing team reported on social media being caught in the vicinity of a gunfight between two local street gangs.

The Facebook entries have since been removed.

Nacra 17 crew, Anette Viborg reported that they had to seek shelter for violent shootings that occurred near the port of Niteroi, Rio.

At first they thought it was fireworks.

Nearby workers at the port escaped into sheds.

'Soon they wave strongly of the Danish sailors that they should seek shelter for stray bullets. Rindom says she can see the fear in their eyes as the noise of machine guns (or whatever it was, many shots sounded) echoes between the walls, and all are extremely uncomfortable with the situation.'

Laser Radial sailor, Anne Marie Rindom, who was also present at the shoot-out reported:

'As everyone probably heard there was shooting near the port in Rio yesterday. We are all ok and nothing happened to us. A Brazilian sailor says it is gangs who shoot at each other and they have no reason to come down to the harbor.

'It was an unpleasant experience and perhaps a reminder that safety is not as high as in Denmark.'