Swimmer Ryan Lochte has been hit with a 10-month suspension following his bogus gunpoint robbery story during a drunken night out at the Rio Olympics, US sports authorities said Thursday.
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Lochte’s gold in the 4×200 freestyle relay was one of 121 overall medals the United States won at the Olympics, yet his actions at the gas station overshadowed a large portion of the second half of the Olympics.
All four athletes also won’t be allowed to join Team USA during their visit to the White House and won’t attend USA Swimming’s Golden Goggles fund raiser event.
Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, James Feigen and Lochte have agreed to serve the suspensions. “It unfairly maligned our hosts and diverted attention away from the historic achievements of Team USA”, said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun in a statement.
The gas-station episode, and Lochte’s “exaggerated” description of it later to newscasters, created an worldwide hubbub and an embarrassment for Olympic officials.
While Ryan Lochte has been punished by the public and sponsors, his biggest punishment will come from both the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), as well as the U.S. Swimming Organization. After the release of security camera footage, which appeared to show the swimmers vandalizing a gas station, and security guards demanding payment for repairs, Lochte eventually apologized for “over-exaggerating” his account.
Last month, Brazilian police charged Lochte with filing a false robbery report, but Lochte has not said whether he’ll return to Brazil to defend himself. Lochte had already left the country by the time the charges were filed. Jimmy Feigen has paid almost $11,000 to charity in order to settle the case.
“You know, I’ve been swimming my entire life, and I’ve never taken a break, and for someone telling me that I can’t do something that I’ve been doing my entire life – I mean, it’s heartbreaking, and it stinks”, Lochte tells Ellen DeGeneres bluntly.
As his story drew heavy scrutiny from police in Brazil, Lochte posted an apology on Twitter, and told Brazil’s Globo TV: “I wasn’t lying to a certain extent”.
Lauer asked Lochte about using the word “victims” in a prior interview, when police have said the swimmers were vandals. Sometimes you make decisions that you later regret. At one point, he said, a gun was pointed at his forehead.
Lochte, as previously reported, is suspended through June 30 of next year and excluded from the 2017 World Championships in July.
Long course is the term for a 50-meter pool, the length used in the Olympics.
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Lochte missing the 2017 Worlds in Budapest, Hungary, dents any hope he had of breaking Phelps’ record of 33 world championships medals.
