What’s that old saying? Pride goes before a fall.  That’s from the Bible and it applies in many ways to the 2016 Summer Olympics about to conclude in Rio.  How ironic that it was a male swimmer who generated this scandal.  After all, the greatest success story of these Olympics has been that of swimmer Michael Phelps who won five golds and one silver at Rio to bring his lifetime total to a record 28 Olympic Medals  – twenty-three Gold, three Silver and two Bronze.  Phelps in Rio has been described as a man of great character and humility.  Not so, Ryan Lochte, who spun the lie that generated an international incient.  But, before we get into what really happened with that, let’s look at Lochte’s triumphs.  He’s a four time Olympian (Athens, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro.  He’s won twelve Olympic medals including six gold, three silver and three bronze.  He is the current world record holder in the 200 and 400 individual medley.  He was named both American and World Swimmer of the Year twice in his career (2010 and 2011).  In college, as a Florida Gator, he was twice named NCAA Swimmer of the Year, he was a twenty-four time NCAA All-American and seven time NCAA Champion.  He has a huge pop-culture status with over a million Twitter followers and 300,000 Facebook fans and has done cameos on “30 Rock” and “Beverly Hills 90210” and was on People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive list in 2012.  Finally, despite Phelps’ tremendous achievements, many people in the know have long considered Ryan Lochte the greatest swimmer in the world.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-oly-swimmer-20160819-snap-story.html

The scandal began when Ryan Lochte told his mother a made up story.  Why did he do it?  No one really knows.  Maybe he told her the story as an excuse for why he hadn’t returned her phone calls.  Maybe he did it to explain why he didn’t get back to his quarters until the wee hours of the morning.   For whatever reason, Lochte blew his first chance at preventing the scandal by talking to his mother about it.  Lochte’s mother then told USA Today Sports that her son and a teammate were in a cab heading to meet Brazilian swimmer Thiago Pereira when the cab stopped to get gas, and a group of people with guns and knives confronted the swimmers.  Ryan Lochte was unharmed but had his wallet taken, his mother told USA Today Sports. She said she was on her way to see Ryan later Sunday morning.  Then a representative for Pereira told The Washington Post that Lochte was robbed in a taxi after leaving a club in Brazil. Pereira’s representative, Flavio Perez, told the Post that Lochte and Pereira were both at the club celebrating a birthday of a mutual friend. Perez also told the Post that Lochte was unharmed.

“Thiago Pereira and his wife, Gabriela Pauletti, were in Club France, the French house in Brazil, and they were celebrating the birthday of a friend in common,” Perez told the Post. “Lochte was also in the same place, commemorating the same birthday. Ryan and Thiago are friends. Thiago and his wife left earlier, they left alone, the two of them. Thiago and his wife went back to their hotel. Then Thiago, on finding out what happened, called Ryan. Ryan is well, and Thiago said that the robbery, according to Ryan, was in the taxi. The taxi was robbed.”

Rio organizers spokesman Mario Andrada said he has been briefed on an “issue” involving Lochte, but could not say if he was held at gunpoint.

But once Lochte’s mother told multiple media outlets that her son was robbed at gunpoint early Sunday morning, the story caught fire.  This soon led to an International Olympic Committee spokesman who denied the claim at first before hedging, acknowledging he didn’t directly know the specifics of the situation.  IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the USOC denied the story at first but said it looks like that denial “is not correct” and the committee was trying to get more information.

As the story broke Lochte got a second chance to quell the scandal, but instead of admitting he told his mother a lie, Lochte embellished on the lie. In an interview with Billy Bush on TODAY Lochte said the following: “We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over. They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so — I’m not getting down on the ground.  And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, ‘Get down,’ and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”

Instead of taking the opportunity to tell the truth, Lochte made the story much more dramatic and added some tough-guy props for himself.  Before I tell you what really happened, let’s look at a day by day breakdown:

Saturday (Aug. 13): Olympic indoor swimming events conclude.

Sunday (Aug. 14): Lochte’s mother, Ileana Lochte, tells USA Today that her son was robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro.

Sunday (Aug. 14): Lochte tells NBC that he and fellow U.S. swimmers Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and James Feigen were robbed early that morning at gunpoint — while sitting in a taxi — by men posing as police.

Sunday (Aug. 14): The U.S. Olympic Committee releases a statement with the swimmers’ account of events. The statement says the athletes are safe and cooperating with authorities.

Sunday (Aug. 14): An International Olympic Committee spokesman initially says reports of the robbery are untrue, then reverses and apologizes, indicating he was relying on earlier incorrect information from the USOC.

Tuesday (Aug. 16): A Brazilian police official tells The Associated Press that authorities can’t find the taxi driver or witnesses, and that the swimmers were unable to provide key details in police interviews.

Tuesday (Aug. 16): Lochte tells USA Today that the swimmers didn’t initially report the incident to the IOC “because we were afraid we’d get in trouble.”

Tuesday (Aug. 16): Lochte’s attorney, Jeff Ostrow, reiterates that the robbery did occur and says Lochte has returned to the U.S.

Wednesday (Aug. 17): A Brazilian judge orders the seizure of Lochte’s and Feigen’s passports. The U.S. State Department issues a statement encouraging those involved to cooperate with Brazilian law enforcement.

Wednesday (Aug. 17): Brazilian authorities pull Bentz and Conger off a plane at the Rio airport, preventing them from leaving the country. Feigen tells USA Today he remains in Rio and is cooperating with authorities. A police source tells ESPN Brasil the swimmers were interviewed at the airport, with a Brazilian lawyer and representatives from the USOC and the U.S. Consulate present.

Thursday (Aug. 18): A Brazilian police official tells The Associated Press that Lochte fabricated the account of the robbery.

Thursday (Aug. 18): A Brazilian official tells the AP that Conger and Bentz confirmed Lochte fabricated the story.

At a news conference, Brazilian police said the swimmers were not robbed at gunpoint at a gas station as they claimed, but a law enforcement official did say a security guard used a gun to control the situation involving Lochte, Feigen, Conger and Bentz.

Thursday (Aug. 18):?According to an ABC News report,?Brazilian police have recommended that Lochte and Feigen be indicted on charges of falsely reporting a crime.

Thursday (Aug. 18):USOC apologizes “to our hosts in Rio and the people of Brazil for this distracting ordeal in the midst of what should rightly be a celebration of excellence.”

Friday (Aug. 19): In a post on Instagram, Lochte apologizes for his role in the incident. “I waited to share these thoughts until it was confirmed that the legal situation was addressed and it was clear that my teammates would be arriving home safely,” he wrote.

What really happened is that four drunk swimmers were looking for a taxi when they decided they all needed to use the restroom.  A couple of them just took a wiz on the side of the road contributing their part to the near toxic Rio waste problem.  Lochte, on the other hand, became enraged that a gas station restroom door was locked so he kicked it in.  The swimmers then vandalized the bathroom and wizzed on the walls.

A look at the swimmers who were with Ryan Lochte on that controversial night

On Thursday, Brazilian authorities presented evidence that contradicted that account and turned what at first had been a deeply embarrassing incident for the Summer Games’ host country into a different kind of international incident.  The head of Rio de Janeiro’s civil police, Fernando Veloso, said the version of the events told by Lochte and three U.S. swimming teammates was fabricated. The athletes, he said, damaged a gas station bathroom early Sunday morning and were involved in a confrontation with armed security before paying about $50 to resolve the matter.  But the story doesn’t end there.  Brazilian authorities said they were in contact with the FBI to determine if Lochte, who returned to his North Carolina home Monday, might be compelled to give a statement in the U.S.  Companions Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger were removed from their flight to the United States by Brazilian authorities.  The men were released after agreeing to remain in the country and to speak with investigators about the episode on Thursday, according to officials with the United States Olympic team. They had their passports returned and they left Rio for the U.S. late Thursday night. James Feigen gave a revised statement to police Thursday night and had his passport released as soon as possible. Feigen will pay $10,800 in restitution, his attorney told the Associated Press, in return for his passport and the right to leave.

The turn of events took at least some of the pressure off Rio 2016 organizers, who have been beset with issues of logistics, venues and security through the first 12 days of the Games.

“The reality is there have been some real problems in Rio,” said Lowell Gustafson, a Villanova University professor who studies Latin America. “But now it’s the Americans who come out looking bad rather than the Brazilians.”

Video from the gas station shows the four swimmers arriving after 6 a.m. Sunday and rushing into the building. After they exited, three red-shirted staffers peered inside where the swimmers allegedly broke a door and ripped a soap dispenser from the wall.  The athletes tried to get into the wrong taxi before finding the correct one nearby. At that point, an employee of the station approached them, and they exited the car and followed him off camera.

Police said the other swimmers told them Lochte — who was the subject of a 2013 reality television series on E! called “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?”  — was the most “upset” and in the most “altered” state.  At some point, a gas station security guard drew his weapon to stop the swimmers from fleeing, police said. In the video, one of the four can be seen briefly raising his hands. “We have no evidence to believe that there was any excess use of the weapon,” Veloso said, adding that the guard was an employee of the Brazilian government authorized to be armed.

Images from another camera next showed the swimmers in a different area of the gas station. One had fallen onto his back and was helped up by a teammate. The four sat on a curb and could be seen in animated conversation with a person out of view of the camera.  The swimmers eventually stood up and left after paying for the damages.

“We can confirm that there was no robbery as they described, and they were not victims as they presented themselves,” Veloso told a packed news conference, alleging the athletes had given “a fantastical version of events.”

Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee, issued an apology shortly before midnight on Thursday.

”On behalf of the United States Olympic Committee, we apologize to our hosts in Rio and the people of Brazil for this distracting ordeal in the midst of what should rightly be a celebration of excellence,” Blackmun said.

Blackmun called the actions of the swimmers unacceptable and said the USOC will review their actions and any possible consequences when they return to the U.S. after the Games.

None of the swimmers were indicted. “Indictment is a formal process that happens at the end of an investigation and hasn’t taken place, at least not yet,” Veloso said. “But there is very strong evidence that at least one of the swimmers, Ryan Lochte, made a false police report.”

Needless to say, the people of Rio were not happy.  “They owe an apology, not only to the police, but all of Brazil,” said Maria Jose Rocha, an 87-year-old retired lawyer who lives near the police station where Bentz and Conger gave their statements Thursday. “They disrespected us and underestimated our justice system.”

During a daily news briefing at Olympic Park, Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada — who apologized to the swimmers before more was known about the case — took a moderate stance.

“Let’s give these kids a break,” he said. “Sometimes you take actions you later regret. They are magnificent athletes. Lochte is of one of the best swimmers of all time. They had fun. They made a mistake. It’s part of life. Life goes on.”

The final word came in an apology from Lochte in his post on Instagram:

“I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend — for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics. I waited to share these thoughts until it was confirmed that the legal situation was addressed and it was clear that my teammates would be arriving home safely.  It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country — with a language barrier — and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave, but regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night, I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that am sorry to my teammates, my fans, my fellow competitors, my sponsors, and the hosts of this great event. I am very proud to represent my country in Olympic competition and this was a situation that could and should have been avoided. I accept responsibility for my role in this happening and have learned some valuable lessons. I am grateful for my USA Swimming teammates and the USOC, and appreciate all of the efforts of the IOC, the Rio ’16 Host Committee, and the people of Brazil who welcomed us to Rio and worked so hard to make sure that these Olympic Games provided a lifetime of great new memories. There has already been too much said and too many valuable resources dedicated to what happened last weekend, so I hope we spend our time celebrating the great stories and performances of these Games and look ahead to celebrating future successes.”

Many sports commentators have stated that they are sure Lochte didn’t write the apology, but I don’t think that matters one way or another since he has publicly stated them and stands behind them.  What might be more crucial is the things that the apology didn’t say.