The saga surrounding the American swimmer Ryan Lochte’s allegations that he and his team-mates had been robbed at gunpoint after a night out in Rio has caused quite a stir in the United States.
On Thursday, the US Olympic Committee apologised for the behaviour of four of its athletes after Brazilian police presented strong evidence that contradicted the six-time gold medallist Lochte’s version of events.
Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger provided statements to Brazilian police and their passports were returned after they were pulled off a flight home the previous night following Lochte’s claims that he, Bentz, Conger and James Feigen were robbed at a petrol station by men claiming to be police officers.
“From the swimming pool to the cesspool. And we are lapping up every detail,” wrote the USA Today on Friday morning.
“In the saucy words of the New York Post: ‘Liar, liar, Speedo on Fire’.”
Under the headline “The Ugly American”, the Post said Lochte was “everything the world hates about Americans”.
TOMORROW'S COVER: Ryan Lochte is everything the world hates about Americans https://t.co/A5wvURF54Y pic.twitter.com/WqNpI8wKOd
— New York Post (@nypost) August 18, 2016
The talk show Today managed to speak to Lochte before the latest evidence emerged and the swimmer, who has already returned home, told the journalist Matt Lauer that he and his fellow swimmers were “victims”.
“We wouldn’t make this story up,” the 32-year-old is reported to have said, before explaining that inconsistencies in his story were due to “traumatic mischaracterisation” caused by stress.
Meanwhile, the New York Times laid out the conflicting accounts of what happened that night, complete with video evidence. “There was no robbery in the way it was reported by the athletes,” Fernando Veloso, the civil police chief, said.
Sally Jenkins, a columnist for The Washington Post, did not hold back, describing Lochte as “a champion swimmer caught in a riptide of self-absorption”, describing him as “the dumbest bell that ever rang”.
“The 32-year-old swimmer is so landlocked in juvenility that he pulled an all-nighter with guys young enough to call him uncle,” added Jenkins. “His story to NBC’s Billy ‘what-are-you-wearing’ Bush had the quality of a kid exaggerating the size of a fish, and notice how he was the hero of every detail. That was always the most dubious, implausible part.”
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