Chris Kinney proudly displays the Team USA logo wherever he goes. The memorabilia earned by the metro Atlanta Olympic athlete over the years serves as a reminder of everything he’s accomplished, he says.
“They are attached to the memories I made at the Olympic Games,” the bobsledder told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday morning. “My head is kind of spinning at the moment.”
Kinney, 35, said his Olympic memorabilia, electronics and heirlooms given to him by his 86-year-old Japanese grandmother were among the items stolen from his Roswell apartment that was broken into early Tuesday.
Police said they responded to the 2200 Big Creek Apartments on Wednesday evening after Kinney watched a recording of an unidentified man on his home surveillance camera hours earlier.
Credit: Chris Kinney
Credit: Chris Kinney
“The investigation is still very early, but our officers have been able to develop significant suspect information to continue to follow up on,” police said. “We are not able to formally identify a suspect at this time, however.”
Credit: Chris Kinney
Credit: Chris Kinney
Kinney competed on the four-man bobsled team at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. He said the items stolen from the apartment included his Olympic pins, his opening and closing ceremony jackets from those Games, his Olympic ring and other memorabilia earned through his post-competition work with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee in Tokyo and Beijing.
Credit: Chris Kinney
Credit: Chris Kinney
While his electronics are easily replaceable, Kinney said the Olympic memorabilia and family heirlooms are not, due to the emotion and memories that are intertwined with them. The heirlooms, two samurai swords, are both older than him, he said.
“It’s just priceless to me,” he said.
Kinney, who is retired from Olympic competition, said he watched his home surveillance footage of the robbery while at a Team USA event at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. He eventually arrived at his apartment to find his furniture displaced, clothes littering the floor, mattress hanging partially off the bedframe, and his toilet apparently used, according to a video he shared with the AJC. A Japanese doll figurine given to him by his family was also thrown on the ground, Kinney said.
“It looked like a tornado went off,” he added.
Credit: Chris Kinney
Credit: Chris Kinney
Kinney grew up in Stockbridge and moved to the Roswell complex last summer, but he never envisioned something like this happening to him there. He now hopes for justice and is thankful for the support from the Atlanta community and the Paralympic Committee.
“It really means a lot,” Kinney added.
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