RIO DE JANEIRO _ Finally, Ryan Lochte has apologized.
Now USA Swimming should suspend him for four years to ensure that he does not compete in the 2020 Olympics for the United States.
A suspension for four years for a lie gone bad may sound like a harsh punishment, particularly since USA Swimming only suspended Michael Phelps for three months in 2009 when Phelps was pictured with a marijuana pipe and for six months in 2014 when he was arrested for driving drunk.
I would argue that what Lochte did was worse in terms of the collateral damage it caused to both the U.S. and Brazil in terms of embarrassment and wasted resources. A four-year ban would knock Lochte, 32, out of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Making his fifth Olympic team is Lochte's next big goal in swimming.
It's a goal he shouldn't be allowed to attain.
It is quite possible USA Swimming will choose a penalty of far less severity than a four-year suspension, and that would be a shame. Given that Lochte has already stated that he is going to take an extended break from competitive swimming, a punishment of two years or fewer would be no more than a slap on the wrist for the 12-time Olympic medalist.
U.S. Olympic athletes should be held to a higher standard, and in many ways they are. The constant drug testing they undergo, for instance, is second to none. Their behavior should be exemplary as well, and Lochte and his three American teammates fell so far short of that in the wee hours of Sunday morning that it's laughable. For his part in vandalizing a gas station restroom, concocting a lie to make it all sound better and forcing the U.S. Olympic Committee to apologize to the people of Brazil, Lochte deserves a four-year ban from USA Swimming events and the national team.
