They told ABC News that they never meant to hurt Lochte, but wanted to express their feelings about the Olympian’s involvement with the show.
Advertisement
Pictures from the scene showed two men seated with their hands behind their backs wearing shirts that displayed Lochte’s name overlaid with the universal red “no” symbol.
Dance pro Derek Hough, who’d danced with partner Marilu Henner before Lochte and Burke did their foxtrot, jumped into the action as well, approaching a handful of women seated in the audience who’d also revealed “no Lochte” shirts.
Police identified the men on stage as Sam Satoodeh, 59, and Barzeen Soroudi, 25.
The chaos was not shown on television, but the camera cut to the show’s host Tom Bergeron who sent the show to commercial as an apparently flustered Lochte wiped sweat from his brow.
Lochte and Burke got a respectable score of 24 for their dance but were topped by US Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez and her partner with 31. A security guard tackled one of the men to the ground while a second guard grabbed the other by the arms and walked him to the side.
Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts. The two male protesters were arrested and booked for trespassing.
Lochte and swimming teammates have faced criticism since they were involved in an early-morning drunken encounter during the Olympics last month at a gas station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Lochte changed his story, from initially saying he was robbed at gunpoint to then recanting and apologizing. “I’m shocked, and I’m hurt for Ryan”, she said. It’s this very thing that I feared would happen when I found out Lochte was going to be part of the show. The judges assured Lochte multiple times that they were there to judge only his ballroom dancing.
Advertisement
On Thursday, USA Swimming and the United States Olympic Committee announced that Lochte had been suspended for 10 months from domestic and worldwide competitions as punishment for lying about a supposed armed robbery at a gas station in Rio during the second week of the Olympics.
