RIO DE JANEIRO _ Gold medals and a gas station.
These will be the lasting twin legacies of the 2016 Olympics for the United States, whose athletes produced both a huge medal count and a huge international brouhaha in the first Summer Games ever held in South America.
The good twin? The U.S. won the most medals it has since 1984, plastering the field with spectacular performances and inspiring stories. The U.S. won 121 medals overall, which trounced every other country by at least 50. American women won 61 of those medals and American men 60, as Title IX once again proved its worth.
The bad twin? Four U.S. swimmers _ with 12-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte as their drunken ringleader _ caused a totally avoidable late-night crisis that overshadowed much of the second week of the Olympics.
Vandalism, lies and videotape: this was the story that wouldn't go away. It ultimately forced Lochte to go on an apology tour late in the week via Instagram, Brazilian TV and NBC, where Matt Lauer interviewed Lochte and lectured the swimmer like a disappointed father on the difference between a robbery and a negotiation.
The United States Olympic Committee tried to put the best face on it all Sunday afternoon in a "Farewell to Rio" news conference. USOC leaders said these Games would be defined by the 555 American athletes who did so well on the fields of play and not the four who urinated in public at the end of a night of partying and had a confrontation with armed security guards.
But the USOC also understands that Lochte and his teammates _ Jimmy Feigen, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz _ really messed up when they concocted the "held up at gunpoint" story to cover up Lochte's vandalism at a Brazilian gas station. To some people, LochteGate will be the lasting hashtag of these Games. The USOC and USA Swimming will announce punishments for all four swimmers after further investigation.
"It was not perfect," Scott Blackmun, the USOC's CEO, said Sunday about these Olympics for Team USA. "We did have the one regretful incident with our swimmers. ... I think that we all understand that they let down our athletes, they let down Americans and they really let down our hosts in Rio, who did such a wonderful job. And we feel very badly about that. ... We understand that the things that were said about the people of Rio just weren't true."
