SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers about the U.S. Olympic Committee’s disciplinary measures taken against Jimmy Feigen, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz for their role in the now-infamous gas station incident in Brazil:
RESULTS
Question: Are the USOC disciplinary measures for Bentz, Conger & Feigen
- Fair – 8.1%
- Too Harsh – 89.5%
- Not Harsh Enough – 2.4%
SwimSwam voters overwhelmingly found the punishments to be too severe for the three. A quick look at the major points of the punishments (you can read about them in full here):
- 4-month suspension
- No monthly USA Swimming stipend during suspension
- Not allowed to visit White House with Olympic team
- Not allowed to attend Golden Goggles
- 4-month suspension
- No monthly USA Swimming stipend during suspension
- Not allowed to visit White House with Olympic team
- Not allowed to attend Golden Goggles
- 10 hours community service
Bentz’s additional community service comes for breaking USA Swimming’s curfew rules for athletes under 21.
Ryan Lochte, for his part, will serve 10 months suspension and miss the 2017 U.S. Nationals and World Championships. In the incident, Lochte was the only one to publicly misrepresent what happened at the gas station, framing it as an armed robbery rather than a collection of payment for damages allegedly caused to a bathroom.
Our poll focused specifically on the three others, who didn’t exaggerate the story to media the way Lochte did. The trio was still hit with four months of suspension that will keep them out of the Short Course World Championships as well as U.S. Winter Nationals, along with a removal from the U.S. Olympic team’s visit to the White House and USA Swimming’s Golden Goggles awards ceremony.
In one of our most-voted-on polls in history, 2,619 votes were cast for the “too harsh” option out of 2,925 total votes. That’s just under 90%. Only 236 votes went to the “fair” option and just 70 found the punishments “not harsh enough.”
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters which is a bigger threat to the integrity of swimming, doping or intentional misrepresentation of swimmers classified under paralympic rules:
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The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
Too harsh for Conger, and Bentz. But I think the punishment is appropriate for Feigen. I find it amusing that the two younger swimmers were more mature than lochte and Feigen. Unfortunate they got caught up in this during their first olympic games
Probably harsh but not unreasonable punishments for urinating against a building in public when representing your country at the Olympics. But wow, 4 months V Sun Yang who got 3 for taking a banned PED backdated ie ZERO. Will we ever see any equity in swimming sanctions across countries. Probably never while FINA is at the helm.
This does not have anything to do with FINA but usoc & usaswimming .
SF is trialling a new paint that reflects the smell of urine back at the pee- er . Peeing in the pool , on walls is yukky .& these 4 just imprinted further the crass rep of swimmers ..
But it is yesterdays news for good & bad . The bad becoz they can’t redeem their reps – ppl have moved on .
Well I’d like to know is how do any of these behaviors warrant the taking of a passport, then receiving $10,000.00 or more as a REQUIRED donation to get it back! Sounds totally corrupt and like extortion to me! All of it seems way overblown
in punishments! A lifetime ban? That’s totally crazy!!!
Yeah, that was ridiculous. Brazil allows people to pay cash to prevent charges for minor offenses. I was actually shocked to learn that Brazil has such a bizarre, and quite frankly, unjust law.
The original offer was $46,000!!! Very strange. You would think a “fine” for such a minor offense wouldn’t be more the $100 dollars or so. I think Brazil was unfairly characterized in the media in the run-up to the games, but I still have to remind myself that Brazil didn’t become a democracy until 1989. Maybe this law is a remnant of the previous dictatorship. It allows the wealthy and/or well-connected to escape from the real consequences of their law breaking, but poor people are left… Read more »
Can’t attend the Golden Goggles? Oh no, the horror! That’s like being banned from a high school homecoming dance. I hope the four can recover psychologically from this. They might need years of therapy!
I think the punishment of the swimmers is ridiculously harsh. A better punishment would have been making the four swim in a national meet wearing an “old school Speedo” swim suit.
This entire incident was blown completely out of proportion. Some drunken behavior by young men turning into an international cover story.
Personally, I’m tired of hearing about it.
The new poll asks about doping versus international misrepresentation in Paralympic sport. It should be INTENTIONAL misrepresentation, namely making deliberate efforts to appear more disabled than the athlete’s actual status during classification procedures, in an effort to receive a classification in which it is easier to win against less able competitors.
Why did Bentz get 10 hrs community service?
He was under 21 and broke curfew.
Josh – he was given an additional punishment for being out while not 21 years old. Those team members under 21 had a different curfew placed upon them.
Nothing like a bonus curfew on a sporting event that began at 10 PM local time and ended at 1 AM the next morning. All of the athletes were up late into the wee hours almost every night what with warm-downs, urine testing, hydration, meals, etc.
Braden: It would be great if you or the “Gold-Medaled-One” could get an interview with a high-ranking US Swimming official as such Mr. Wielgus. It would be interesting to hear their thinking on such things as the length of suspension, loss of performance bonuses to the four swimmers, and dealing with the USOC.
That’s ridiculous in itself. Last time I looked, 18 constitutes adulthood. Curfew seems ridiculous.
Word around convention is that the USOC wanted lifetime bans. USA swimming talked them down to the current suspensions.
But no lifetime ban for PE users? If true, that’s insane.
The important thing to also keep in mind with this incident, as the USA Today has been reporting, these guys, including Lochte, were not misrepresenting what happened as badly as it first seemed. The police in Brazil most definitely do not have clean hands here, either. While Lochte certainly seems to have grossly exaggerated what happened (which was just plain stupid) and the language barrier seems to have contributed to some confusion, the USA Today reports could certainly seem to support the belief by the four swimmers that they were held up at gunpoint.
Tell that to Attila the Hunt and others who ran with every single media report to slam them all on this site.