Originally appeared on E! Online
The first rule of the Olympic Village: Stay in the Olympic Village.
Olympian Ryan Lochte shared insight into the Team USA rules regarding the Olympic Village — the area where the competing nations house their athletes at the Games — amid the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In a TikTok posted by his wife, Kayla Lochte, on Aug. 6, the professional swimmer — who competed in four Summer Olympics between 2004 and 2016 — noted that Team USA requires swimmers to stay within the village.
To clarify, Kayla Lochte, who shares kids Caiden, 7, Liv, 5, and Georgia June, 13 months with Lochte, asked the 40-year-old, “USA has stricter rules than other countries, right?” which he confirmed.
“But you can leave for certain things…” Kayla Lochte then posited, to which Lochte immediately shut down with a “No.”
The 12-time Olympic medalist said there were certain special occasions where swimmers had to get approved by their head coach.
The rules surrounding the Olympic village have been widely discussed after Brazilian swimmer Ana Carolina Vieira was dismissed from this year’s games for leaving the grounds with her teammate Gabriel Santos following the Opening Ceremony July 26.
The 22-year-old athlete later said a “communication failure” led to the end of her Olympic dream.
Lochte, the second-most decorated American swimmer after Michael Phelps, is no stranger to Olympics controversy. In 2016, he claimed he and three other American swimmers — Gunnar Bentz, Jimmy Feigen and Jack Conger — were robbed at gunpoint at a gas station amid the Rio Olympics. Lochte later admitted that he exaggerated the incident, leading to charges of falsely reporting a crime, which were later dismissed, and a 10-month suspension by US Swimming.
But while he stepped away from competition after failing to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he’s been in Paris cheering his former teammates on.
Including Ryan Murphy, who learned he and wife Bridget were having a baby girl after winning the bronze medal in the 100-meter backstroke — to which the What Would Lochte Do? gushed about on social media.
“Representing #teamusa @ryan_f_murphy not only collecting his medal in the 100 backstroke tonight, but also found out him and his wife are having a baby girl!!!” he excitedly shared on Instagram July 29. “Wow! Congrats my man, my hat goes off to you. Job well done.”
