LE SCAN SPORT – Klete Keller, crowned at the Athens and Beijing Olympics, is suspected of having been one of the demonstrators who stormed the Capitol last week.
Former US swimmer Klete Keller, two-time Olympic relay champion, was identified among pro-Trump protesters who stormed into the US Capitol in Washington last week, multiple media reported on Tuesday.
The New York Times and SwimSwam, a swimming news site, claim Keller was among those who entered the building that serves as the seat of Congress, the United States’ legislature, interrupting the session that was to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
With an Olympic jacket among the rioters
A video posted by the conservative Townhall website shows footage of Keller wearing a US Olympic team jacket, inside the Capitol Rotunda, as police attempted to evacuate people from the area. Several former teammates and coaches, on condition of anonymity, identified him with the aforementioned media.
No video showed Keller acting in a violent manner, claims the NY Times, but the mere fact of being there exposes him to federal charges of breaking and entering and disturbing the peace.
Klete Keller, second from the left, on the podium at the 2007 Worlds with the American 4x200m.
Aged 38, he won gold at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008 with the American relay (4x200m), alongside Michael Phelps. He also won silver in the same event in 2000 in Sydney and was an individual bronze medalist in the 400-meter freestyle at the 2000 and 2004 Games. NY Times, Keller recently worked as a real estate agent in Colorado Springs, home of the US Olympic Committee.
Since the violence last Wednesday, which left five dead, including a police officer, around and inside the Capitol, the federal police have been trying to find all those who entered this place. Many images have circulated on social networks, often posted by the protesters themselves. Seventy people have already been indicted, 170 suspects identified and the judicial authorities anticipate “hundreds” of indictments in the months to come, said Tuesday a senior official of the Department of Justice in Washington.
