Lochte in better place as he aims for Tokyo Games
After lengthy suspension, he has goal of fifth Olympic berth
SANTA CLARA >> Ryan Lochte didn’t want to be at the pool this weekend during a redemptive tour that he hopes ends at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
But it’s not for the reasons swim fans had come to expect from one of America’s most talented but sometimes misguided Olympians.
Lochte, still twitchy with nervous energy, wanted to be home in Florida to celebrate his son Caiden Zane’s first birthday.
“It wasn’t until my son was born that I got that fire back inside me,” Lochte said before finishing second in the 200 individual medley Saturday night at the TYR Pro Series at Santa Clara.
This is a new look for Lochte, 33, who gained notoriety for a bizarre episode at a gas station in Rio de Janeiro at the 2016 Summer Olympics that led to a 10-month suspension.
“I’m really proud how far he has come since the incident in Rio,” training partner Caeleb Dressel said Saturday night. “It got blown out of proportions on both ends.”
Lochte is racing this weekend on a U.S. domestic tour for the first time since the Rio Games. The perpetually tanned and muscled swimmer has returned proclaiming to be a different man. Whether it leads to a fifth Olympic appearance is anyone’s guess.
But Lochte gives American swimming a familiar face now that Michael Phelps has left the scene. The 12-time Olympic medalist once considered on par with Phelps still commands interest while rising star Dressel tries to pump up his brand over the next two years.
The chaos of parenthood has changed everything for a man who competed at outof-the-way meets this spring.
“Caiden, he’s my motivation,” said Lochte, who suffered his second false start of the meet Saturday morning in the 100-meter backstroke.
Now Lochte is focused to succeed after not enjoying swimming since the London Games in 2012. With little else to do with his life, the former University of Florida star had continued training anyway.
“After 2013 I was done with the sport,” Lochte said. “I was still training, but my heart wasn’t into it. I wasn’t going to practice every day with purpose. I was just hanging on with a thin string.”
The swimmer left Gregg Troy, his longtime coach from the University of Florida, after the 2012 Olympics. But the change didn’t produce the desired results: Lochte qualified for only one individual event in Rio, finishing fifth while struggling with injuries.
He had been an afterthought — until the gas station vandalism incident that proved more of an embarrassment to the U.S. Olympic Committee and to Lochte than anything else.
During an interview with NBC, Lochte gave an embellished account of what happened at the gas station that put Brazil in a bad light.
Troy recalled Saturday seeing the maturity when Lochte returned. Having a family has made a difference the coach said.
In January, Lochte married longtime girlfriend Kayla Rae Reid, a one-time Playboy model who is Caiden’s mom. The marriage marked Lochte’s moment of focus.
“Now he appreciates it,” Troy said, not surprised Lochte returned to the pool. But why?
Lochte still had goals and “I knew if I just stopped I would never reach those goals,” he said. “I didn’t want to show that to my son. I want to teach him that if you do have a dream and a goal and you work at it on a daily basis you can achieve it.”
Besides, he added, swimming is more fun than ever — “even though I am getting my butt kicked by a bunch of little kids.”
Lochte acknowledged the USA Swimming suspension helped him find a way back to the sport. He needed the break, whether forced or not. So now his approach is to look ahead, not behind.
If the latest Olympic trek doesn’t work out?
“One hundred percent I will be OK with it as long as I know in myself that I gave it everything I had,” Lochte said.
Troy, 67, will demand nothing less. He never does. The coach retired this spring from Florida after 20 years. He is working with Lochte’s elite group at the Gator Swim Club in Gainesville to prepare them for the Tokyo Games.
“I don’t think people give” Lochte “enough credit for” the way he has rebounded, Dressel said. “He’s an animal in practice. I give my best in practice and he gives it right back to the whole team.”
When Lochte broached the subject of returning last year Troy warned it wouldn’t be easy. Lochte had not forgotten Troy’s legendary workouts of swimming 8,000 to 9,000 meters a day.
“If I want to do everything right I have to go back to him,” Lochte told himself. “I have to go back where it started.”
Then came the first grueling set. Lochte almost landed in the hospital, saying, “I was crawling out of the pool.”
Troy laughed when told of Lochte’s account. “He’s done more swimming in the past six months than the last six years,” the coach said.
Now Lochte is used to the demanding routine, but with a twist. Dad doesn’t have the luxury of resting between the two-a-day workouts.
“There is no sleep for me,” he said. “These other kids can go home and rest and recover. I have no recovery. I have to be a dad. And I love it.”
Lochte is scheduled to race in the 50 butterfly and 50 backstroke today but might return home early because he misses his son.