US SWIMMER RYAN LOCHTE has apologised for ‘not being more careful and candid’ in how he described a mugging story that was eventually proven to be untrue.
Lochte, along with team-mates James Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro by men claiming to have been police officers after driving back from a party.
Lochte also described how one of the men had pressed a gun to his forehead.
But in recent days, the story has disintegrated.
Rio police said the swimmers had stopped at a petrol station and vadalised a bathroom before being caught by security guards, who were in possession of hand-guns and who asked the group to pay up for the damage they had done.
It was also claimed by local law enforcement that the swimmers were accompanied by two women, which may have led them to invent an alternative story.
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Though Lochte returned to the US shortly after the incident, Conger and Bentz remained in Rio for longer and were later removed from a flight bound for America and hauled off for questioning.
They retracted the previous story and were eventually allowed to leave but Feigen has been forced to make a $10,800 payment to avoid prosecution and get back to the US.
Lochte, essentially, had been described as the ringleader and orchestrator by Brazilian authorities and he continued to peddle the fabricated story once he arrived back in the US.
During an interview with NBC on Wednesday, he reiterated a version of the same story and referred to him and his team-mates as ‘victims’.
Now, he’s held his hands up and admitted it was entirely made up.
“I want to apologize for my behavior 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”, he said today.
He continued:
It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country – with a language barrier – and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave, but regardless of the behavior of anhyone else that night, I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that I am sorry to my teammates, my fans, my fellow competitors, my sponsors, and the hosts of this great event.”
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