US swimmer Lochte apologizes to Brazil on national TV

U.S. gold medalist Ryan Lochte admitted to Brazil’s largest broadcaster Saturday (August 20) night that he’d exaggerated his story about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio – but insisted he did not lie.

In an interview aired on TV Globo after the proud soccer nation won its first Olympic gold in a penalty shootout, Lochte apologized to the nation.

“I’m sorry,” one of America’s most decorated Olympic swimmers said. “Brazil doesn’t deserve that.”

The Olympian insisted that he was a victim of extortion because he was forced by armed guards to hand over money.

He said that he “wasn’t lying to a certain extent” but said he did change the events in his version of the story.

“I over-exaggerated the story,” he said.

“To the gas station owner, to the Brazilian police, to the people of Rio and to the people of Brazil and everyone who came together to put on these wonderful Games, I want to say that I am truly, 110 percent – I am sorry. It won’t happen again. I have learned from it,” he added.

The tale of a gunpoint robbery in Rio initially embarrassed the Brazilian nation until local police accused Lochte, 32, of making it up to cover up vandalizing a gas station.

Lochte’s interview with the Globo TV network aired after the Brazil v Germany game. The soccer match was expected to attract a record number of viewers, many of whom stayed on to watch Lochte speak to the nation.

Excerpts of an interview with Lochte by Matt Lauer also aired on “NBC” Saturday night. In that interview, he apologized to his swimming teammates, Jimmy Feigen, 26, Jack Conger, 21, and Gunnar Bentz, 20, who police stopped from leaving Brazil over the incident.

When asked what he was feeling when he saw his teammates taken off a plane and held back in Brazil, Lochte responded by saying he was “hurt.”

Bentz, the youngest of the four swimmers involved in the incident, released a statement saying Lochte played the key role in the incident, tearing a poster off a wall and arguing with armed security guards at the gas station.

The 20-year-old said the guards confronted them after they had urinated behind some bushes and Lochte tore the metal-framed advertising poster from the wall. Lochte admitted to that in the interview on Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday, a Brazilian judge provided another twist to the saga, suspending permission for Feigen to leave the country – even though he had already flown home.

Feigen had agreed in an earlier hearing to pay a 35,000 reais ($11,000) fine for lying.

Prosecutors quickly appealed the penalty as being too low, persuading the judge to suspend the earlier ruling that had given Feigen the green light to leave.

It was not immediately clear what impact the decision might have on Feigen, but his Brazilian lawyer Breno Melaragno told the O Globo newspaper in a story posted online Saturday that his client was the victim of extortion.