To which Lochte said: “And that’s why I’m taking full responsibility for it, is because I overexaggerated that story and if I had never done that we would never be in this mess”.
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“I let my team down”, Lochte said through tears to Lauer.
I have a feeling this incident will turn into a “don’t do a Lochte” blip when the 2020 Olympics hit, but hopefully, Lochte will be punished for what he’s done and continuing to do.
Ryan Lochte, who elected to compensate for not being the most decorated Olympian of all time (an honor his teammate, Michael Phelps, swam to instead) by decorating a Rio gas station with urine, is on an apology tour. But the way Lochte described the event made it seem as if the final exchange of money was a result of a negotiated deal to pay for damages made to the gas station, not a result of an act of force by the security guards.
The episode, which has embarrassed the U.S. sporting superpower, saw Lochte and three other gold medal winning United States swimmers embroiled in a controversy after he gave a shocking – and false – account of how they had been robbed at gunpoint.
“It’s how you wanna make it look”, Lochte tells Lauer. Before I go into what he said to this Brazilian news program, I just want to say, Ryan how stupid are you that you would go on national television and provide events to an incident that you initially fabricated drunk.
In a previous statement, Lochte has apologized for his behavior in a statement and said that he was traumatized by being out in a foreign country with a language barrier and having a stranger point a gun at him and demand money.
“All we know was there was a gun pointed at our direction, and we were demanded to give money”, he told Lauer during the Saturday taping of the interview.
Asked why he lied to NBC’s Billy Bush in a Sunday interview about a gun being pressed to his forehead and cocked in his initial story, Lochte said he was still intoxicated from drinking the previous night.
The story first became public when Lochte’s mother spoke to Ben Way of Fox Sports News in Australia.
Lochte also apologized to the people of Rio and Brazil.
They boarded a plane Wednesday night to leave Rio, but authorities removed the pair from the jet. Lochte also, if nothing else, showed an incredible amount of willpower in refusing to understand the difference between being robbed and being asked to pay for damages. “Because I over-exaggerated that story”, Lochte said.
The fourth swimmer involved, Jimmy Feigen, is expected to donate $11,000 to a charity in order to settle the dispute, while the US Olympic Committee stated on Friday that the behaviour of the athletes involved does not “represent the values of Team USA or the conduct of the vast majority of its members”.
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“And I’m sorry that my immaturity caused all this ruckus”. I wanted to help out any way I could.
