In an interview with the country’s largest broadcaster, the United States gold-winner said he was “110%” sorry and blamed his immaturity for causing “all this ruckus”.
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Surveillance video shows damage to a poster outside an alley where the swimmers relieved themselves, but no video has been released that shows them going into or damaging the gas station restroom as police have said. “I was like, ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground”.
“I just interviewed Ryan Lochte”, Globo New York correspondent Felipe Santana tweeted Saturday afternoon.
In the interview, Lochte described how four USA swimmers being asked to pay for damages at a gas station by two armed guards blossomed into a much taller tale, and took the blame for letting it get that far. “What I’m trying to get at is … the first version of the story you told, Ryan, was much more about the mean streets of Rio”, Lauer told him.
Lochte admitted a couple minutes into the interview that he “over-exaggerated” the story about a cocked and loaded gun being placed at his forehead because he was still drunk hours after the gas station incident.
“I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend – for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics”, Lochte said in the statement posted on his Instagram page.
Bentz said they had been confronted after they urinated behind some bushes near the petrol station.
For Lochte, he was not making it as his excuse and he should not have exaggerated the details. Lochte also gave an interview to Globo, one of the biggest television networks in Brazil.
Lauer said: “You’re striking a deal to pay for what damage you’ve caused so that he doesn’t call the police and this doesn’t become a bigger incident?” “I just wanted to make sure they were home safe before I came out to talk”.
Lochte said on Sunday that a taxi he and fellow American swimmers Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz and Jimmy Feigen were riding in had been pulled over by guys with badges who had pointed guns at the swimmers and robbed them. “There was a gun pointed in our direction”.
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“I was immature and I made a stupid mistake”, Lochte told Lauer on Saturday. We were all frightened and we wanted to get out of there as quick as possible, and the only way we knew is this guy is saying you have to give them money.
