{"id":412,"date":"2016-08-19T16:15:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T20:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=412"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:06","slug":"ryan-lochte-apologizes-for-behavior-in-rio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/ryan-lochte-apologizes-for-behavior-in-rio\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Lochte Apologizes for Behavior in Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Olympics swimmer Ryan Lochte posted a statement on Instagram<\/a> today, after it came to light that the armed robbery he reported in Rio last weekend wasn\u2019t quite that.<\/p>\n

Lochte told an NBC reporter last Sunday that he\u2019d been robbed at gunpoint, but he omitted<\/a> that he and three friends had damaged a men\u2019s bathroom at a gas station just before that, and that the \u201crobber\u201d —\u00a0who Lochte told the reporter was dressed as a police officer — was in fact the gas station\u2019s security guard, confronting the Americans after discovering the mess.<\/p>\n

This apology is a good attempt but, on closer inspection, it falls short.<\/p>\n

His statement starts well: \u201cI want to apologize for my behavior last weekend \u2013 for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning.\u201d But we can inspect public apologies more carefully: he\u2019s apologizing for the way he described<\/em> the event,\u00a0not for the vandalism itself. In fact, he never does apologize for the damage he did to the restroom, which reportedly included ripping down a sign, damaging the door and soap dispenser, and other things. And instead of saying he wasn\u2019t \u201ccandid,\u201d why not just say he wasn\u2019t \u201chonest\u201d?<\/p>\n

Then he explains how traumatic it is to be out late with your friends in a foreign country \u201cwith a language barrier\u201d and be confronted at gunpoint and asked to leave. No doubt this was traumatic \u2013 but a statement like this doesn\u2019t belong in an apology, because what the apologizer intends as an explanation sounds to the listener\/reader like an excuse. One gets the sense that Lochte still feels that an injustice was done him, perhaps that the security guard over-reacted. Apparently the Americans paid $50 to the gas station owner at the time, and perhaps Lochte feels that he was in effect robbed. It\u2019s tough to write a sincere apology when you feel that you were the real victim.<\/p>\n

He goes on to say that he \u201cshould\u2019ve been much more responsible in how I handled myself, and for that, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d Exactly what that should\u2019ve looked like, he doesn\u2019t say. As if he\u2019s following a formula, he says he accepts responsibility \u201cfor my role in this happening,\u201d without really accepting any responsibility for single-handedly creating an international incident. We wish he\u2019d said, \u201cI misrepresented this incident as if I were an innocent victim, and ended up slandering the reputation of Rio de Janeiro, Olympic athletes, and the U.S.\u201d He adds that he\u2019s \u201clearned some valuable lessons,\u201d without hinting at what those might be.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s hoping this will all go away, but one way to make that happen is to issue a sincere apology. Maybe he’ll try again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Olympics swimmer Ryan Lochte posted a statement on Instagram today, after it came to light that the armed robbery he reported in Rio last weekend wasn\u2019t quite that. Lochte told an NBC reporter last Sunday that he\u2019d been robbed at gunpoint, but he omitted that he and three friends had damaged a men\u2019s bathroom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}