Ryan Lochte Apologizes for His 'Behavior,' Says He Learned 'Lessons'

Ryan Lochte - UGLY AMERICAN

Two images from last week have been haunting me.  One is of Olympian swimmer Ryan Locate. A 32 year old "kid" who epitomizes the arrogance and hubris of some of our professional American Olympian athletes.  The other is the image of a five year old Syrian boy who was pulled bloodied and covered in dust from the rubble in his home that was bombed in Aleppo, Syria. 

Oman Daqneesh

The one kid has known nothing his whole life other than deprivation and war. The other "kid" (32 years old) has lived a life of privilege and adulation. 


Both "kids" were in trouble last week.  Oman lost his home, and his brother.  He is homeless.

The other "kid" was caught in a massive LIE.  Ryan Lochte said he and his fellow swim teammates were robbed at gunpoint after a night of partying on the town at the Rio Olympics. 

Turns out Lochte and his teammates weren't robbed at all.  The full story still isn't out but what we know so far that has slowly dribbled out the past week is that the gray haired dyed Ryan and his fellow Olympic swimming teammates Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz and Jimmy Feigen, after a booze filled night of partying, approached a local Rio Brazilian gas station and vandalized it by urinating on the wall and tearing down a sign.  

The dyed haired Lochte with the other "kid",  31 year old Michael Phleps

Lochte said he had a gun "put to his head" and was robbed.  Turns out what happened was that the security guards at the Shell gas station confronted Lochte and his frat boy pals about the vandalization.  The security guards do admit a gun was drawn, apparently to show them they were serious about holding "the boys" responsible for tearing down the door to the gas station rest room.

After the initial "robbery" incident, their story started to show inconsistencies.  When confronted with these inconsistencies, Lochte said:

"It's how you want to make it look like, whether you call it a robbery, whether you call it extortion or us paying just for the damages, we don't know.  All we know is there was a gun pointed in our direction and we were demanded to give money."

This morning Lochte issued a more contrite apology after he realized that his million dollar money making ability of endorsing products may be affected ("may"?) by creating an international incident where is now epitomizes and reinforces the Ugly American images that is so prevalent to our South American neighbors.  He said he apologized "110%" and produced fake tears to prove his "sincerity."  

Ryan, here's my message for you:  you f-cked up BIG TIME.  It's OVER.  And no thanks to you for ruining the Olympics for those true athletes who have sacrificed to much to go to and compete in the Olympics. Not only the American athletes (by the way, I'm an American that thinks the Olympics for all countries, not just the "USA! USA!" crowd to be covered disproportionally in the American media) but for those thousands of international athletes who did not have the privileged life that some of our American athletes have.  

When the Olympics started I vowed not to write anything about the Olympics because, frankly I can't stand the Olympics now.  The American coverage is one sided, packed with commercials, time delayed and too many soft feature focus stories about how the Olympic athletes faced such "hardships" to get where they are now, representing out country at these international games. At one time in the distant past I used to look forward to watching the Olympics on TV.  That was when most the events were televised in real time and all the countries were covered more or less equally.  At time when the commentators didn't pig up the airwaves by talking incessantly, giving "background" while the athletes competed.  And also while the athletes were amateurs.

Then came a decision some years ago to have professional athletes take over our participation in the Olympics, probably as a rest of the knowledge that the then Soviet Union and East European countries like East Germany had government subsidized athletes competing who regularly beat our American athletes.  Nothing was more distressing to me than to see our giant professional basketball players like Charles Barkley, Scotty Pippen and Magic Johnson take to the Olympic courts to represent the best of our country. 

The "Dream Team" 

Sure, they're excellent basketball players, they're professional.  Guess what? They won the Olympic gold medals at the 1992 Olympics that were held in Barcelona, Spain. Big surprise that they beat they opponents by an average of 44 points. This year's American "Dream Team" were so special that they didn't even deign to stay in the Olympic village, instead opting to stay on a luxury ocean liner berthed in the Rio harbor. 

Well folks, I'm going on longer here than I intended but I had to get this off my chest.  

I'll be truthful with you when I tell you that I despise Michael Phelps and his like.  Arrogant and clueless, not appreciating the good fortune that this country has afforded them. Oh don't worry about Phelps and Lochte, they already have their millions from past endorsements.  They both still live at home with their mommies, even though they're both in their early thirties.  They will still have their adoring girlie fans (and probably even a few gay guys but not this one, that's for sure).  Their privileged life goes one, albeit Locate's future earning potential probably has been affected "a bit" by his Big Lie.  I shed no tears for him.

This is who I shed tears for: