In August 2016, the swimmer wrongly declared that he and Team U.S.A. swimmers Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and James Feigen were robbed at gunpoint at a filling station in Brazil throughout the Rio Games. He was undoubtedly “hammered” at the time, as he’d been commemorating their win; Lochte later on admitted he didn’t keep in mind all the information of the night. After going back to the Olympic Village, Lochte overemphasized the story to his mother, who later on informed the media that Lochte had actually been robbed at gunpoint. He duplicated the story on NBC’s Today—and eventually, his lies got the very best of him.
At initially, Lochte had actually informed Billy Bush on the Today program, “We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over. They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground—they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground.”
After the fact came out, Lochte was visited his sponsors and a provided a 10-month suspension by the U.S.A. Swimming and the United States Olympic Committee.
