In the main segment of the interview between NBC’s Matt Lauer and embattled swimming star Ryan Lochte, the Olympic athlete got drilled for the repercussions of his antics in Rio last weekend.
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In interview with Lauer, Lochte also apologized for taking airtime away from other athletes, saying, “I took away from their accomplishments about this story, about me being immature for one night”.
“You told me on the phone, Ryan, you said, ‘We are victims here”.
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?”.
Speaking to NBC News, Ryan Lochte admitted that his early descriptions of the events that took place were wide of the mark, and that no gun had actually been pointed at his head.
“The things that you do are going to be magnified and the mistakes that you make are going to have a light shined on them in a way that’s going to make it very hard for you to overcome”, Blackmun said.
Lochte, who has Rio gold from the 4x200m freestyle relay, had said a man posing as a police officer robbed him and his teammates while they were coming back from a party in a taxi.
Bentz, Conger and Lochte won the 4x200m freestyle relay team at Rio.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set up a disciplinary commission to investigate the incident and the four athletes’ behaviour.
Lochte on Saturday said he took “full responsibility” for vandalizing a gas station bathroom and then inventing a story about it to police during the Rio Olympics. Lochte apologized on Instagram for not being “more careful and candid” about how he described the incident. “Because if I didn’t over -xaggerate the story, to what I said when I talked to Billy Bush, none of this would have happened”.
He added: “To the gas station owner, to the Brazilian police, to the people of Rio and to the people of Brazil and everyone who came together to put on these wonderful Games, I want to say that I am truly, 110% – I am sorry”. “We were held, I mean, there was a gun pointed in our direction. I don’t want them to think I left them high and dry”. “It was my fault, and I shouldn’t have said that”.
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“If i never did that we wouldn’t be in this mess, none of this would’ve happened and it was my immature behavior”. “I was a a little frightened, having a gun pointed to you”. “They let down Americans”. Feigen, 26, was also detained and forced to pay a fine of over $10,000 to a Brazilian charity. The gas station owner told O Globothat, though the swimmers were asked to use the gas station bathroom, they peed on the wall instead. They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground - they got down on the ground.
