TYR Sport will retain Ryan Lochte as a sponsored athlete in light of his recently-announced 14-month suspension, CEO Matt DiLorenzo announced via ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell Monday.
“We recognize the unfortunate circumstances involving Ryan and fully understand that professional athletes must be diligent in complying with the rules set by the USADA,” DiLorenzo said. “Ryan is an important part of Team TYR, and we will continue to support him and his goal of making Tokyo in 2020.”
Ryan Lochte will keep his swimsuit deal with @TYRSport, brand announces. pic.twitter.com/J2SQjw8qJB
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) July 23, 2018
The US Anti-Doping Agency announced Monday that Lochte has accepted a 14-month ban for having received intravenous infusions in a volume greater than 100mL in a 12-hour period without a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE).
His reputation had already taken a hit back in 2016, when he fabricated a story that led to the infamous “gas station debacle” at the Rio Olympic Games. He was ultimately given a 10-month suspension and dropped by a handful of high profile sponsors, including Speedo. His legal troubles in Brazil are still not fully resolved almost two years later.
TYR signed Lochte in January 2017, and his “Just Let Me Work” campaign launched shortly thereafter. The brand has recently made a push to rival Speedo at the top of the swimwear world, signing Katie Ledecky in early June.
In a press conference today shortly after the suspension announcement, Lochte explained the situation: “I wasn’t taking anything illegal. Everything was legal. You can get it at CVS, Walgreens, but there are rules and you have to obey them…Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. I’m going to keep going [to Tokyo 2020].”
Lochte posted an instagram photo of he and his wife Kayla Rae Lochte receiving IV infusions at Revival IV Lounge in Gainesville May 24th, leading to his suspension.
“It’s devastating to my family about this because I definitely made myself a better person after Rio, and I was back in training,” Lochte said. “I was feeling good. I was swimming fast. My son being born. Everything was happening. Everything was perfect, and then this happened. And it’s devastating.”
“As soon as you get to a certain point or level, in any kind of sport career, you’re always going to have an eye on you. I think I’ve learned it the hard way. Definitely. Especially since Rio. And now this.”
“I’m just going to post on my son and my wife, leave everything else out,” Lochte added. “Once you put anything on social media, it’s out there for the world.”
Lochte’s 14-month ban is back-dated to the date of the infusion, which means the 33-year-old is ineligible for the Pan Pacific Championships in August, as well as the 2019 World Championships. His road to Tokyo, while not at a dead end, will be a lot more difficult.
Ryan screwed up and then owned it. Don’t think he’s a bad person, just horribly naive and lacking in maturity and good judgement at times. He’s made his path to Tokyo that much tougher, but I’m still pulling for him. I respect TYR’s position, but also assume that his contract is loaded with performance incentives that he won’t be able to achieve in the near term, so it might not be that big of a financial risk for TYR.
I would also assume that the “Revival IV Lounge” won’t be seeing too many UF athletes in the future…
This probably related to the way use masking agents which are legal but require more than 100ml in 12 hrs to work. So it maybe a way to add to the policing and in a sense the masking is illegal by the amount. Why does someone of his level of conditioning need an IV. Why would you want to be hooked to one unless highly necessary to save your Heath.
So, what actually has he lost? Pan Pac and WC? Money is staying with him and contracts are intact without necessity to be at high level in major meets for two years. Life is beautiful now. Who tells that he is dumb. Smart move 😀
Ryan has a hot wife, great shoe collection so life is good!
Well, I’d award Lochte for the transparency (he published the IV pic on his Instagram) 🙂
Right call. USADA is just trying to make an example of him. He didn’t cheat. He went to a hydration clinic and took some vitamins via IV. Not sure why this is an issue or even banned?
Maybe because people might use this to speed up masking?
Fluids taken intravenously can dilute the blood a bit and change the concentrations of chemicals in it. This could push banned substances below the limit of detection or it could lower allowed-but-limited substances down below the limit.
Do I think Lochte was trying to do that? No. If he was, he wouldn’t have posted about it because he would have known that isn’t allowed. Do I understand why this is banned? Absolutely.
The bottom line is, when you are a pro swimmer you are obligated to also be an anti-doping expert. You have to know what you can put in your body, when you can put it in your body, and in what manner you can put in your body.… Read more »
That is nonsense, Sven. The blood volume is 8% of total body mass and the total body water is 60% total body mass, (in Lochte’s case this would be >50 Liters). Dilution of the total body water by 2% with a 1 liter infusion of crystalloid will NOT change the results of tests for a banned substance. A liter of gatorade taken by mouth would do the same thing, but is not banned, not should it be.
I will now buy TYR suits and goggles exclusively.
A liter administered orally will change your blood concentration the same as that administered intravenously? There’s 100% absorption from your gut to your blood stream? Didn’t you say you were a physician?
Honestly people just read why it’s banned:
https://www.usada.org/wp-content/uploads/General-Information-on-IV-Infusions.pdf
It’s really informative. Long story short: there is no evidence that this is even valuable for sports performance, but doing it can alter blood test results and mask urine test results; and more importantly if whoever is administering this doesn’t know what they’re doing it can introduce infections and cause a multitude of complications including death.
It’s serious, this isn’t overreach or an arbitrary question of cheating or not.
If… Read more »
Would we be saying that if it happened in China or Russia? Can’t have it both ways.
They need to support some other swimming while he is on suspension.
Please continue post training and family post social media. Neutral posts is ok. These is not bad..
I also like how people try to justify him clearly taking banned substance by saying it was a mistake… Once it happens to athletes from other countries, they are completely evil and guilty, but once it happens to an athlete from the US, the article is not so harsh and it wasn’t a banned substance and he is dumb and blah blah with more excuses.
That’s the great thing about being American!
He didn’t take a banned substance.
But he didn’t take a banned substance. The substance he took was completely legal. Vitamin B-12. It comes down to the “way” he took it. See the attached article: https://www.usada.org/is-it-prohibited-or-dangerous-for-athletes-using-iv-infusions-for-re-hydration-and-recovery/
He didn’t take anything illegal. B-12 is completely legal. He could have bought a bottle of B-12 vitamins, let some tablets dissolve in water, drank the water (in excess of 100mL) and put the exact same substance into his system that way and it would have been completely legal. What was illegal was putting the exact same substance into his body through the use of an IV. The belief is that an IV drip of B-12 gets it into your bloodstream faster than… Read more »
This is exactly my point, you went and did the research, good thing it’s available, to justify his actions, but you would never do that for an athlete from a different country. You would just read an article header that would say something like “So and so has been caught taking a banned substance” and go around yelling on every corner that this “so and so” should not compete and how bad of person he or she is. But when it comes to a US athlete, first of all, look at an article header… then you even went out of your way to respond to me to change my mind, to find a link to justify his actions and to… Read more »
You’re not being fair. You admit that MICHAEL did his research on this one, but still try to paint him as a jerk by assuming he wouldn’t do the same for a non-American. There are plenty of people who keep an open mind about doping allegations. Often it’s deceiving because not everyone who has an opinion makes their opinion public.
Im not talking about Michael, he is just happened to be a great example of an open-minded person who could be very selective about when to open his mind. I hope there are people who are truly open-minded, but so far, on this web site, I see a lot of closed minds including authors of the articles and commentators and they are the ones who make their opinion public! To be fair, RYAN LOCHTE is a CHEATER and the article is not fair to other athletes.
The substance itself isn’t banned, that’s what MICHAEL was trying to explain to you, it’s the manner in which he took it that got him banned, which is completely fair because it was written out for everyone to know. Vitamin B12 is nowhere near the same as other substances that different swimmers have been banned for.
He didn’t go out of his way to change your mind, he tried to inform you and point out the innacuracies of your “banned substance” statement.
You have no idea of what research I do when expressing my opinions of any matter Swimming or otherwise related. My pet-peeve is disinformation and biased postings or flat out lies and people that repost them without doing proper research for themselves before forming their own opinions.
Ugh he didn’t???
It’s not a banned substance. It is a banned method.