He has also been ordered to perform 20 hours of community service and can not join the team at several upcoming events.
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During the suspension, no monthly stipend from USA Swimming or the USOC.
Ryan Lochte will be suspended from U.S. swimming events for 10 months, the United States Olympic Committee and USA Swimming announced in a statement on Thursday.
TMZ Sports have stated the punishment was made not just by the USOC, but by the International Olympic Committee and USA Swimming. US Swimming did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. One of the young men, Gunnar Bentz, must also perform 10 hours of community service for violating a curfew for athletes under age 21.
Ryan Lochte has been banned from swimming until next June and will forfeit 100,000 dollars (£75,000) in bonus money that went with his gold medal at the Olympics. Plagued by a groin injury at Olympic trials, he made the US team in only one individual event, the 200 individual medley.
While the near-10-month suspension is four months longer than what Michael Phelps received in 2014 for his second DUI, anything short of a ban from the next Olympics – never a realistic option – isn’t enough to truly derail Lochte’s career, either in or out of the pool.
Lochte also did not repeat the “gun to the forehead” statement to authorities, transcripts show, and Brazilian legal experts and a judge suggested it was the security guards who may have committed the most serious offense that night, either by robbing the swimmers or using a weapon to demand payment for alleged damages to an advertising poster.
USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun promised “further action” would be taken against the swimmers having claimed they had let down America and detracting from the success of the Games.
The incident “has tapped into one of Brazilians’ biggest pet peeves – gringos who treat their country like a third-rate spring break destination where you can lie to the cops and get away with it”, Brian Winter, the vice president for policy at Americas Society and Council of the Americas, told The New York Times in August. In that incident, Phelps was stopped after police clocked him driving at 84 miles per hour as he crossed double lane lines in the Baltimore tunnel on Interstate 95. On the night of August 17, police removed Conger and Bentz from a USA -bound plane at Tom Jobim Airport.
Lochte has apologized for poor behavior at the Rio gas station on the morning of August 14. They will not have access to U.S. Olympic training centers during their suspensions and will not be invited to USA Swimming’s year-end Golden Goggles celebration in NY in November. “We look forward to focusing our energy on the Paralympic Games and the incredible men and women representing our country in Rio”. Brazilian authorities say they are still pursuing charges of filing a false police report against Lochte. His lawyers have insisted he did not provide false information to police.
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Since the Games ended Lochte has been dropped by all four of his sponsors. But it appears that Lochte will be busy with a different kind of competition – a dancing competition, as Lochte is set to compete as a contestant on Dancing with the Starswhich premieresthis upcoming Monday, Sept. 12.
