Kenton Gibbs
Kenton Gibbs
The USA national swimming team completely destroyed records in many events at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Yet somehow the biggest story from the American swimming camp is Ryan Lochte and other members of the team lying about being robbed.
Between Lochte’s behavior at the gas station and his apologists, it becomes all too clear why the rest of the world doesn’t like America.
There are many details that are being debated. There is also a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding the events from that night. Some say Lochte is not the only party exaggerating. Taylor Barnes and David Meeks of USA Today found support for his later statements about the incident. However, there is a timeline of some things that have been confirmed as having happened that morning.
According to multiple sources, Lochte and a few of his teammates arrived at a Shell gas station around 6 a.m. on Aug. 14. Then they urinated around the building and attempted to leave. Sometime between relieving themselves and the swimmers trying to leave, Lochte damaged a sign, and it’s speculated that other property may have been damaged. Security guards stopped them from leaving and demanded that they pay for damages; conflicting reports have come out both supporting and denying that the guards pointed guns at the crew. The swimmers then paid and headed back to the Olympic Village.
The lies began upon their return to the Olympic Village on Aug. 14 and seemingly never stopped. Lochte said the first person he told was his mother, followed by others in the village. Then, the story took off from there. Before 10 a.m. that same day, the first public report of the “robbery” came via Twitter as Ben Way of Fox Sports tweeted, “BREAKING: @USASwimming Gold medallist (sic) Ryan Lochte has been held up at gunpoint at a party in Brazil.”
By 12:45 p.m., Lochte was interviewed by Billy Bush of NBC News where he detailed a scenario of being victimized by fake police. He claimed men impersonating officers side swiped the vehicle he was in, flashed their badges, put a gun to his head and took his wallet. He left out any context of anything that led up to these events. Not to mention, the video footage from the gas station shows that there was no side swiping accident or gun to his head.
Lochte’s lies were not the worst part of the story. Members of the media acting as apologists for Lochte, like Bush and filmmaker Michael Moore, are what makes America look the worst. It appears as if some Americans are defending Lochte and his teammates instead of reprimanding them. This is yet another incident involving esteemed athletes that casts America in a negative light in the international court of opinion.
It is hard to decide which of Lochte’s defenders gave the most deplorable statements. In response to Matt Lauer calling the event a negotiation instead of a robbery, Moore said, “… I pray a man in a uniform pulls a gun on Matt Lauer tonight after the Billy Joel concert at the Garden and demand[s] money from him because he pounded his mighty fist against one of those disgusting ad posters we men are forced to look at while relieving ourselves!”
The fact that Moore would rather hope that Lauer is robbed, instead of delving into why Lochte has not admitted he lied, is disgusting.
But Bush took it a step further by calling Lochte “a rowdy kid having fun.” Of the four Americans involved in the incident, Gunnar Bentz is the youngest at 20 years old and Ryan Lochte is the oldest at 32. Jack Conger is 21 and James Feigen is 26. These men should not be considered boys when younger men are so often tried as adults.
It is almost mind-blowing to think that with so many details still up in the air, it can be so apparent that someone is lying, but such is the case in this scenario. There is intentional omission of detail and addition of things that did not happen. Lochte has used every kind of wording except, “I lied,” to describe his version of what happened. He once described himself as the only Olympic swimmer who couldn’t float, which is no longer fitting considering all of his defenders continue to keep him afloat.