A tearful Ryan Lochte has said sorry to his USA swimming team-mates, his family and the people of Brazil for a “stupid mistake” at a Rio gas station that overshadowed the final week of the Olympic Games.
Advertisement
That’s in sharp contrast to Lochte’s original story, in which he claimed he was robbed at gunpoint. Lochte admitted that he “over-exaggerated” the story and is now done with his “immature antics”.
In the interview, Lochte, who returned home to Charlotte, North Carolina, appeared to concede that he knew that the guards were demanding payment for the damage done, not robbing them. “If I had never done that, we would never be in this mess”. I’m not done with this sport. “I wanted to be there”.
Two of his fellow team-mates who were also caught up in the situation, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, were pulled off their flight home as Brazilian police looked to establish exactly what had happened. “I wanted to be there”. Like, I don’t want them to think that I left and left them dry because they were my teammates.
Lochte left Rio before his teammates, and a few of them were taken off their plane and detained. “I’m going to move forward from this, learn from this and make sure this never happens again”.
Lochte said: “I left details out, and that’s why I’m in this mess”. Video has also since surfaced of the gas station incident. A top Brazil police official said the swimmers damaged property at the gas station.
Bush said he believed Lochte might have lied about “some details” but that it was a misunderstanding, which caused Roker to about lose his mind.
“I wasn’t lying to a certain extent”, he said. “Regardless of the global attention that this case has had and the false testimony, I say that from a legal point of view. the guards carried out a crime”. I over-exaggerated that part, and the gun was drawn but not at my forehead. “I definitely had too much to drink that night and I was intoxicated and none of this would have happened if I hadn’t done that”.
Called out on his lies, Lochte backtracked, but never full on groveled – despite Lauer staying right on him with some tough questions.
Following the fabricated story, Lochte and teammate Feigen were indicted by Rio civil police for falsely reporting a crime.
While Lochte arrived back in the US earlier this week, Bentz and Conger were pulled off a home-bound flight by Brazilian authorities, and Feigen was detained. In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer that aired Saturday night, Lochte apologized for his behavior and how he handled the aftermath of the incident.
Advertisement
“I was immature and I made a stupid mistake”, he told Lauer.
