Olympic Swimmer Ryan Lochte’s Turnaround Play
On the podcast, 12-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte discussed his swimming career and how he's working to repair his reputation and regain sponsorships after two swimming suspensions.
Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte is trying to repair his reputation after two suspensions that cost him valuable sponsorship endorsements and hurt his chances of qualifying for what would be his fifth Olympic games in 2020.
To try to fix the damage, the 35-year-old swimmer signed on to CNBC’s “Back in the Game,” in which former baseball player Alex Rodriguez mentors athletes to help repair their finances and reputations, as he had to do a decade ago following revelations that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Lochte accompanied Rodriguez to ACG’s 2019 InterGrowth conference, where Rodriguez was speaking, and sat down with Middle Market Growth for an interview about the show, his swimming career, and how he plans to regain the public’s trust.
Lochte was suspended from swimming in 2016 during the Rio Olympics, when he claimed he was robbed at gunpoint, which led to accusations that he filed a false police report. He was suspended again in 2018 after he posted a photo of himself taking an IV injection, prohibited by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency under most circumstances. As a result of the suspensions, Lochte lost his sponsorship endorsements and much of his income.
Parts of this interview were included in the episode of “Back in the Game” featuring Lochte, which originally aired on Nov. 13.
“Those kids that looked up to me as a role model, I feel like I let [them] down … I want to become a better role model for those kids and show them that that person in 2016 is not the same person that you see right now.”
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