The six-time Olympic champion Ryan Lochte missed the re-qualification for the Olympic Games.
In the eliminations for the starting places in the USA team at the upcoming games in Tokyo, the 36-year-old only came seventh in the final on Friday in Omaha in the 200-meter medley.
Lochte has participated in four Olympic Games and with twelve medals the second most in history. "I want to continue swimming, but another Olympic elimination, I don't know," said Lochte, according to the American news agency AP, after clearly missing the qualification. “I'll be almost 40. That's a bit of an exaggeration. ”The Games in Paris are in the summer of 2024.
Lochte hit after 1: 59.67 minutes. Michael Andrew, 14 years his junior, had the best time in 1: 55.44 minutes. "I really wanted to be on this Olympic team," said Lochte. The competition was "probably the most important swimming competition of my entire career" and it was hard to have disappointed. The photos showed how Lochte cried after the race. Winner Andrew and also the long-time competitor and Olympic medal record holder Michael Phelps, who retired in 2016, hugged Lochte after the competition.
Ryan Lochte has long been considered a kind of swimming pop star.
His enthusiasm for training was legendary, his technique with the unique underwater kicks was extraordinary.
Outside the pool he was of course a slightly freaked-out weirdo who then completely exaggerated it at the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 when he invented a robbery on himself to cover up his own misconduct.
In 2018, he received a doping ban after posting a photo himself showing himself undergoing a prohibited intravenous transfusion.
It was banned retrospectively for 14 months until July 2019.