Ryan Lochte was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons at the Rio Olympics. His story about being held up at gunpoint by someone dressed up, as a police officer was certainly a low point for him and his Team USA teammates. But was his sanction — a 10-month ban plus exclusion from the 2017 World Championships — by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and USA Swimming proportionate in light of the sanctions given to other athletes who have also engaged in regrettable conduct at the Olympic Games?
Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, and James Feigen (the three younger and lesser known swimmers with Lochte in Rio that night) were each suspended from domestic and international competitions for four months. Their suspensions include the loss of their monthly stipends and access to USOC facilities during the course of their bans.2 Comparatively, Lochte’s 10-month ban is harsher because he must also forfeit all the funding he earned from the USOC and USA Swimming for his gold medal won at the 2016 Olympic Games. Plus, he is required to perform 20 hours of community service. Lochte will lose an estimated $130,000 during his suspension.3
Although Lochte only has himself to blame for the mess he is in, Lochte’s sanction is severe when compared to prior sanctions issued by the USOC or US national governing bodies for an athlete who misbehaves during the Olympics.
Past sanctions of American athletes for wrongdoing at the Olympics
Going back 10 years to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, there were a handful of instances where the USOC got involved, but Lochte’s was the first case where an athlete was suspended for conduct deemed to be unbecoming at the Olympics. In 2006, Bode Miller, the highly touted medal-hopeful for the US ski team came in with a chance to win multiple medals for Team USA but instead failed in every one of the five races he competed in. His best finish was sixth and he failed to finish or was disqualified from other races. All the while, he kept a high profile at various nightclubs and angered many Americans with his nonchalant attitude, telling reporters after he had finished competing that it was an awesome two weeks since he got to party and socialize at an Olympic level.4 Yet despite Miller’s rebellious and indifferent behavior, he was not sanctioned or sent home early from Torino by the USOC. The only “sanction” Miller received was a “heart-to-heart” about his behavior from the CEO of his national governing body, the US Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA).5
In another instance, snowboarder Scotty Lago, bronze medalist in the men’s half pipe in 2010 at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, “voluntarily” left the Games after “sexually suggestive” pictures of him wearing his Olympic medal surfaced on the Internet.6 Lago did not receive any sanction from the USOC or USSA other than an early trip home from the Olympics.
Sanctions of non-American athletes during the Rio Olympics
Not only was Lochte’s sanction unprecedented for U.S. athletes at the Olympics, his sanction is also longer and harsher than all other athlete sanctions handed down as a result of improper conduct at the Rio Olympic Games. The next harshest athlete sanction was a 6-month ban handed down by the French Tennis Federation (FTF) against one of its upcoming tennis stars, Benoit Paire. Paire was sent home early from the Olympics because he partied, stayed out too late and criticized his own federation.7 After initially provisionally suspending Pair, the FTF extended his suspension until February 2017. Paire will not receive any financial or other assistance from the FTF during his suspension and will be ineligible for any national team competition, including the Davis Cup.8
The Dutch Olympic Committee sent a gymnast home that admitted to consuming alcohol after qualifying for the finals of his event, which broke team rules. But beyond losing his spot on the Olympic team, the athlete was not sanctioned any further. 9
Finally, the Egyptian Olympic Team sent one of its judo athletes home early because he refused to shake the hand of his Israeli competitor.10 The athlete was publicly reprimanded by the IOC and the Egyptian Olympic Committee for his misconduct but he did not suffer any further sanction once he returned home.
Conclusion
Lochte’s suspension is longer and harsher than any received by an athlete for misbehaving at an Olympics in the past decade. It will force him to miss several major competitions, such as the Winter National Championships, the World Swimming Championships, and the Swimming World Cup. That said, his misconduct was unique compared to all others because his misrepresentations caused the USOC and USA Swimming tremendous embarrassment at a time when the eyes of the world were watching and when social media’s 24-hour analysis and reporting made the Lochte situation more scandalous than anything that preceded it. Additionally, behind the scenes, there was undoubtedly pressure from the IOC to lay down the hammer against Lochte as it contemplated whether to levy its own sanction on him. In the end, the IOC recognized how severe Lochte’s sanction was and decided it would not hand down its own against him.
Athletes like Bode Miller and Scotty Lago likely benefited from a pre-Twitter world where there was less pressure placed on the USOC and USSA to come down hard on athletes for regrettable misconduct at the Olympics. As both Lochte’s and Paire’s sanctions demonstrate, social media has made athletes’ lives more transparent and any misstep or transgression now creates a clamor for action. Regardless of what anyone thinks, Lochte’s ban will stand and has set a new standard for athlete misbehavior on the international sports stage.
1. Special thanks to Global Sports Advocates Legal Intern Matthew Kaiser for his assistance in preparing this article. 2, Team USA’s White House visit and USA Swimming’s annual award and fundraising ceremony. Gunnar Bentz was also sanctioned with 10 hours of community service for “violating a USA Swimming Olympic Village curfew rule placed on athletes under . . . 21.”
3. According to ESPN, Lochte would not receive his “$25,000 bonus the USOC awards to Olympic gold medalists,” his monthly stipend of $3,250 from USA Swimming ($32,500 over 10 months), and his gold-medal bonus from USA Swimming, which was $75,000 in past Olympics. http://www.espn.com/olympics/swimming/story/_/id/17493633/ryan-lochte-suspended-10-months-united-states-olympic-committee-usa-swimming
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501546.html
5. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501546.html
6. “One shows the woman bending to kiss the medal below Lago’s waist, while he pulls his shirt up. The other shows the woman biting the medal while Lago . . . look[s] on.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/sports/olympics/24lago.html
7. The FTF only sent Paire home after he was eliminated from the Olympics.
8. http://www.fft.fr/actualites/fil-d-infos/suspension-levee-pour-mladenovic-et-garcia-prolongee-pour-paire
9. http://www.flogymnastics.com/article/44765-yuri-van-gelder-expelled-from-olympics-will-miss-rings-final
10. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2016/08/15/egyptian-judoka-sent-home-after-refusing-israeli-opponents-hands/
