XPost: nyc.politics, alt.politics.clinton, sac.politics
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

So you’re Ryan Lochte (heaven forbid), you’re an Olympic star
with a dozen medals, you’re a cool cat with bluish hair and a
wry smile, and you’re returning from a night in Rio with three
Olympic teammates.

Someone orders the cab driver to pull into a Shell gas station
so someone can use the bathroom, but then everyone allegedly
destroys the bathroom, breaking a door, busting a soap dispenser
and tearing down a poster.

Your band of idiots returns to the cab without apology or
explanation and is prepared to drive to the Olympic Village when
a security guard intervenes. The guy wants everyone to pay for
the damages, a couple of your fools try to run, a gun is pulled
and your boorish bunch finally shells out the equivalent of $50
and drives away unharmed.

So you’re Ryan Lochte and you’re embarrassed, but by the time
you return to the Olympic village, you’re also inspired. You’re
a media hound who suddenly has a story to tell, not the true but
cowardly story of entitled American athletes breaking stuff, but
a story that would make you seem tough and hip. That sort of
story needs a patsy, so you think about it for five seconds and
pick on the biggest patsy at these Olympics.

You blame it on Rio. You say you were yet another victim of the
lawless Brazilian streets. You claim you were robbed at gunpoint
by men posing as Rio policemen. You even mention somebody
putting a gun to your head, because what’s more gangster than
that?

You figured nearly everyone here has ripped the city because of
rampant crime, so why couldn’t you? You guessed properly that
blaming it on Rio was the one narrative Americans would believe,
the one that could give you the most buzz.

Where you went wrong was failing to realize that Rio is not just
a faceless collection of dirty beaches and criminal slums, but
also millions of people with dignity and pride. Rio might be
your punch line, but it’s not their punch line, it’s their home,
it’s their family. You didn’t count on a city finally standing
its ground.

This is how an Olympics flew off the track and out of the gym
and ended up at an Ipanema police station Thursday where an
official held a chaotic news conference during which he called
the four American swimmers liars and distributed the video
evidence to back it up.

“We don’t have anybody here with a clown nose,’’ said Fernando
Veloso, head of Rio civil police, through an interpreter. “This
is not a circus.’’

Where was the tough guy? He had tucked tail and ran, back to the
United States, leaving the three younger swimmers -- Jack
Conger, Gunnar Bentz and Jimmy Feigen -- holding the star-
spangled bag and unable to leave the country.

“The city of Rio had its name tainted by a very unreal and
untruthful person,’’ said Veloso. “If you say Rio is a violent
city, you know, metropolitan centers have violence in their
daily lives, Rio has that, it’s true. The difference is how we
face and how we overcome the violence we have here.’’

Make no mistake, in these past couple of weeks, the overcoming
has been difficult. There have been several high-profile Olympic
crimes, beginning with the Games’ security director mugged
outside Maracana Stadium immediately after the opening ceremony.
A British athlete was reportedly robbed, several photographers
had cameras stolen, and there were shots fired at the equestrian
center.

Officials also cannot deny that a gun-waving security guard at a
Shell gas station does not represent violence. Using that gun to
get money from Lochte and his friends would be a crime in the
United States.

But none of that excuses Lochte’s preying on this city’s
reputation to improve his image. It is the worst kind of
opportunism, one that defines ‘’Ugly American,’’ and one that
should cause reflection in everyone attending these Games.

The sort of exaggeration that Lochte built into fabrication has
been heard often here. If you believe some folks at these
Olympics, this teeming metropolis of six million is actually a
dusty little burg of 600 with shootouts every day at noon.

It’s a big city, with problems no different from any other big
city, only they’ve had the Olympics foisted upon them in the
middle of a economic collapse and they’ve been reeling under its
weight. They didn’t want these Games. They knew they couldn’t
handle these Games. The government is out-manned, overworked,
mostly broke, and struggling to maintain even the most basic
Olympic foundation.

A guy watching an X-ray machine drops his chin to his chest in
sleep. A replacement bus driver veers into the narrow streets of
a dangerous slum because he’s lost. Volunteers with wrinkled
shirts and drawn faces lean against walls and close their eyes.

It’s amazing more problems haven’t occurred. It’s shameful that
swimming’s world-record holder in the 100-meter knucklehead
medley would prey on these soft spots and invent some.

“You’ve watched Brazil and Rio specifically get trashed over the
last three days because of that original narrative,” said Brian
Winter, vice president of policy for Americas Society/Council of
Americas. “It worsened this already existing perception that Rio
is the wild West, with a really graphic and scary story.”

Lochte was never considered very bright, now he’ll just be
forever dumb. His coolness will chill. His sponsorships will
disappear. He deserves every bit of everyone’s disgust.

His teammate Feigen should also take heat for allegedly giving
a similar false statement to police after Lochte went on his
media tour. The other two swimmers, when detained here,
allegedly told the truth. In the end, all four guys won relay
gold medals here, but all will finish as a relay of losers.

Oh, and arrogant cheapskates. Included in their forthcoming
apology should include remorse for believing that the
reconstruction of a Rio bathroom is worth only fifty bucks.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com | @BillPlaschke

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/ct-ryan-lochte- olympics-brazile-plaschke-20160819-story.html

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