Ryan Locate’s Big Lie

At the age of 32, you cannot use the excuse of “youthful indiscretion.” Immaturity, maybe, but nobody’s really buying.

And now Ryan Lochte will no longer be selling.

The American Olympic swimmer, caught up in Rio de Janeiro in a drunken mishap he first characterized as an armed robbery, is in fact paying – paying a heavy price.

Four sponsors dropped Lochte on Monday. Speedo, the swimsuit maker, was first. Then Ralph Lauren. A hair removal company and a mattress company followed.

Here we have a 12-time Olympic medal winner who suddenly made himself worthless in the marketplace, despite the sudden onset of explanations and apologies.

Lochte had said he and three teammates — Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz and Jimmy Feigen — were robbed when their taxi was pulled over by armed men posing as police a few hours after the swimming competition ended in Rio. Lochte quickly got out of Brazil but his teammates did not. The robbery story never held up and Rio’s authorities are particularly sensitive about street crime, since it is rampant.

And it is not yet over for Lochte. The U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Swimming have hinted strongly that he will be punished, which could hurt his chances of competing in Tokyo in 2020 in what would be his fifth Olympics. He could also face criminal charges in Brazil.

We’ll not pile on any further, except to recall the warning issued in the 18th century by Sir Walter Scott: Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman