Initially, Ryan said that he and teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, and Jimmy Feigen were robbed at gunpoint – all allegations were founded to be made up. And if I never did that, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so – I’m not getting down on the ground. None of this would’ve happened. “And it was my immature behavior”.
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The gold medalist, together with team mate Ryan Lochte, were blamed by police for falsely reporting that they had been robbed at gunpoint after a party early on Sunday.
“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. “All we know was there was a gun pointed in our direction and were demanded to give money”.
At that point, Lauer said, “You’re striking a deal”.
He said: “I want to apologise for my behaviour last weekend – for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics”. We were all frightened and we wanted to get out of there as quick as possible.
“Yeah, so then we had to give the money”, he told Lauer.
“I’m not saying his travel is going to be hindered right now or anything, ” she said.
The story first became public when Lochte’s mother spoke to Ben Way of Fox Sports News in Australia.
Lauer pressed Lochte on why he maintained his statement to police and to the media, including NBC, that they were “victims”.
But – speaking to TV Globo – Lochte insisted he “wasn’t lying to a certain extent” and claimed he had been a victim of extortion because he was forced by armed guards to hand over money.
“It was towards my general direction as you can see in the surveillance video”, he told NBC broadcaster in an interview that aired in part on Saturday. There was a locked door out back and I did not witness anyone breaking it open.
Back home, Lochte has come in for scathing criticism over the incident, with media coverage and online comments nearly universally damning. Authorities pulled USA swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz off their plane, confiscated their passports and detained them for questioning.
The 20-year-old said the guards confronted them after they had urinated behind some bushes and Lochte had torn the metal-framed advertising poster from the wall.
By now every casual sports fan in the world has heard about the so-called “swimmer scandal” that occurred at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. “It was still hours after the incident happened”.
U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte has apologised for his behaviour in Rio and “for not being more careful and candid”.
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Feigen has since agreed to give $11,000 to a Brazilian charity in order to retrieve his passport.
