In the wake of the United States Olympic Committee’s CEO speaking out on the debacle in Rio involving Ryan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, swimming’s governing body has now also released a statement.
As published on its website, FINA has submitted the following regarding the situation that occurred with the aforementioned athletes on August 14th.
FINA has been carefully following cases involving post-competition behaviour of swimmers at Rio 2016.
FINA obviously regrets that any such facts and the consequent news headlines they have caused may have detracted from the attention that should rightfully be focused on other athletes at the Olympic Games.
In accordance to its Constitution Rules and its Code of Conduct, FINA will carefully monitor on the actions taken by the IOC, USOC and USA Swimming, and will take the measures deemed necessary in such cases.
Earlier today we reported how Scott Blackmun, the USOC CEO announced further action would be taken against the swimmers, although no details were given at this point.
“They let down our athletes,” Blackmun said. “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. I think we ended up in the right place in terms of being able to shine a light on what really happened there.”
People make mistakes, we are all human. He has admitted he made multiple mistakes in this incident and seems very regretful. I think it’s time to stop casting stones at him and forgive him. Hilary Clinton has been caught in multiple lies and many many political scandals yet she is the US presidential candidate and very likely to be our next president why isn’t she considered a poor representation of America, or stripped of her political career for her many fraudulent statements. Maybe Ryan needs to borrow her PR staff. Ryan I hope if anything you lean on God’s love and grace through this and He will get you through.
He was drunk! He wasn’t driving a damn car like phelps! The press got a hold of this and ran… Once again they love it. He is a grown man who is still immature.. I know plenty of grown men like that. And for the other swimmer to pay $50,000 is outrageous! And all Ryan’s sponsors are whimps.
FINA commenting on this is like Potsie trying to interrupt Fonzie.
The junior varsity needs to sit this one out.
Speedo ended it’s sponsorship with Lochte.
I guess it wasn’t “nothing” to Speedo.
I don’t know who his PR person is. But explaining away obnoxious drunken behavior away with being well still drunk…clearly wasn’t the way to go. I think he lost me when he said that he could not understand why they were being pulled out of the cab for doing “nothing”. If someone came over to his house, peed on the all and ripped down signs and destroyed his property – would that be nothing? I honestly think they still do not get what they did. Sad.
When I saw Lochte’s Instagrammed “apology” letter, it was clear he just didn’t get it.
There have been athletes and representatives from Australia, China, Portugal, Russia and Great Britian who have also reported being robbed at gun point. There have been shots fired at the Equestrian Center, an attempted mugging on the chief of security for the Games outside the opening ceremony, which ended with a bodyguard shooting and killing the assailant. There is constant international coverage of the muggings affecting visitors of the Games. To say the host city did a great job at security for our athletes, representative, families and tourist is over reaching.
If anything good has come out of these reports is that it’s forced Brazil to gauge their own backyard and forced a discussion of this epidemic of violence.
You are right. Those are all true.
And they real and serious problems that need to be solved by Brazilian people.
What Lochte did by lying was taking advantage of bad security image and trivialized the seriousness of the real problems.
You are not the least bit supiscious of the apology in light of the fact that these athletes where removed from their flight, had their passports taken and faced time in a South American prison? With so many athletes, families and tourist still in Brazil, you don’t think it is a protective/security response? None of these other attacks had the high profile, media attention that Lochte draws.
And were those robberies investigated as thoroughly?
FINA, USOC, IOC USS. How many organizations in that group has “clean hands” to make a decision on juvenile behavior?
Lying on international media during world’s highest profile event, taking advantage of the host country’s security image to advance your fake machismo image and obtain sympathy as a fake victim, making false testimony to police, fleeing the country leaving your teammates behind, lied again (but with altered story).
As 32 yo.
This is a juvenile behavior now?
Wow.. The standards for decent personal conduct have certainly gone downhill.
Look up the NFL or any professional league. Yes juvenile
This confirms it, when NFL or any professional league is used as the bar.
Time to let go on this one. The media has created its own vortex. The public shaming is time to be over. Ryan will lose a lot of money on endorsements. He knows he screwed up.
El Chopte also has a point….. FINA, USOC, IOC and USS need to clean house. Many disappointing decisions in recent years from these organizations on a variety of topics. It’s difficult to listen to them ride high and mighty and criticize Lochte when we know there is corruption going on.
Let’s move on for the sake of the sport.
Ryan is still an indicted fugitive from justice. The story will not just disappear because SwimSwamers stop talking about it. Unfortunately Ryan must finish the story by facing the music. Welcome to the real world.
You would have a point if anything new were revealed to the storyline. Unfortunately at this point its just bringing down the sport of swimming with the same story day after day. Shaming is done……. he will lose a lot of money….. let’s move on.
I would be stunned if the Brazilian authorities just forgot about Lochte. They have already said that Feigan didn’t pay enough. This is going to drag on and on until Lochte faces the Brazilian courts. Unfortunately he has a long road ahead of him.
Does he? Do you think he really knows he’s screwed up, or does he just understand that everyone is mad at him? I’m not convinced this manchild gets it.
Ok, politics my friend. POS can cheat on his wife in the oval office, deny it and still be president. Or members of an Olympic committee can scalp tickets. Shall we go on.
Separate your arguments people.
Yes, Lochte is (still) a world class swimmer.
He’s also a world class douchebag. If all he had done was pee on a wall. Ok, he made a mistake. If all he had done was pull down a poster in a drunken stupor, ok he made a mistake.
I *can not* overlook as a “mistake” telling self-aggrandizing lies on international television that make your teammates look less manly than you. Then hang your teammates out to dry by leaving them behind like a coward fleeing the country. This isn’t a question about ineloquence, or how well he acted at a clinic for you. He’s a jerk. He will (likely) always be a jerk… Read more »
He’s a great swimmer, why expect anything else? We’re brought up believing sports icons are idols to be emulated, when really they never had to grow up. When I was 12 I wanted to be Alex Rodriguez, I wore his jersey and modeled my swing after him. In a couple year span he left his wife for Madonna and got caught doing roids. It ruined baseball for me. I started swimming and peaked at a sectional level, and have been in the military since. If we can start teaching people to look up to real professions, ie doctors teachers policemen, and just treat sports as a entertaining past time we won’t be as let down. Having said that, lying to… Read more »