Love is in the air, police on the hunt and the power of the Games

Let’s put this story into rewind mode and see what you might have missed, or forgotten, or might not have known you cared about, or might have purposely avoided just so you could relive it here. A look back at Day 11 of competition at the Rio Olympics.

The Partner

OK, there’s an epidemic starting to form in Rio and thankfully it’s not connected to a mosquito. It started with the heartfelt story of a couple of Chinese divers who got engaged near the medal platform.

Now it seems a U.S. triple jumper and his longtime hurdler girlfriend (sounds like the basis for a new CW network show, but only if they were vampires) were pulling one of those déjà-vu-all-over-again moments on Tuesday.

Will Claye had just won a silver medal when he hopped a railing, dropped to one knee and proposed to Queen Harrison. It was touching in that Harrison did not qualify in her event but was there to support her boyfriend, wearing a “Will Power” T-shirt. By all accounts, the diamond was a nice-sized rock.

It gets one to thinking if it was really a surprise and was the ring a big deal? Extensive research (known today as a Google search) revealed these facts about proposals:

--64% of women know that a proposal is imminent.

--88% prefer to be surprised at the moment.

--68% say the size of the ring is important, with one in 10 turning down a proposal if the ring is too small.

--One in four women have turned down a proposal.

--And the least favorite way to be proposed to is on a Jumbotron.

Here’s wishing the couple the best of luck.

The Testament

The USOC is pretty smart about how they conduct their business, notwithstanding initially naming Boston as this country’s bid city for the 2024 Olympics. So it did not go unnoticed when its statement on the Ryan Lochte and Co. armed robbery report included the words: “According to four members of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team … .”

In the journalism business that’s called hedging your bet.

Now, an unnamed police official told the Associated Press that they haven’t found any evidence supporting the account of Lochte and swimmers Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen. In addition, according to AP, police haven’t been able to find the taxi or any witnesses.

There are 100 reasons why the police have come up dry and that the memory of the swimmers, shall we say, was faulty during the time of the alleged incident. Dripping with the intrigue of a John Grisham novel, it’s very possible that Lochte’s account was spot on but it’s even more likely that we may never know all the details of that night.

The Appeal

This is why people love the Olympics. It’s qualifying for the women’s 5,000, one of those watching-paint-dry races. Then about 3,200 meters into the race, Abbey D’Agostino of the U.S. comes up behind Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand. Collision. Both go to the ground.

D’Agostino hustled herself up and prepared to resume running but Hamblin stayed down, in some form of distress. Rather than continue, D’Agostino bent down and helped Hamblin to her feet. They tried to resume running but it was D’Agostino who was actually in more pain and struggling.

What unfolded was the human drama of two people who didn’t know each other offering encouragement, forsaking any chance of qualifying, with the single goal of finishing the race. After the finish line, the pair hugged.

A protest was filed and given the rules of track, both were advanced to the final as was a third runner who was affected.

Maybe a fourth word should be added to the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

How about “Kinder.”

The Confession

Any way you slice it, you don’t want to be Mario Andrada. He’s the chief spokesman for the Rio Games. It’s his job to convince a skeptical press (is there any other kind?) and a doubting public that things are going just swimmingly at Rio.

He had to make the green pool seem like no big deal.

He had to skirt the issue that the part of the mountain bike course was burned by fire.

He defended small crowds and lots of crime.

He had to explain what appears to be an underfunded Paralympics.

Tuesday he threw in the green-and-yellow towel.

“You need to provide good service and we were kind of dropping the ball a little bit in the beginning,” Andrada said.

Dropping the ball is like saying the Titanic hit an ice cube or the SEC schedules strong nonconference opponents.

Five days to go, can’t imagine anything else could go wrong, can you?

Help provided by Times staff writers Kevin Baxter, Lisa Dillman, Helene Elliott, Nathan Fenno, Bill Plaschke and David Wharton, who are also trying to make sense of these Olympics.

john.cherwa@latimes.com