 London: Ryan Lochte said it was his time at the London Olympics. He`ll have to wait until next time.
The swimmer who speaks like a laid-back surfer concluded his third games with two gold’s, two silvers, one bronze and a fourth-place finish.
Impressive, but not quite up to the high expectations that Lochte had set for himself. Still, he said, "For the most part I`m pretty satisfied.”
Lochte closed his meet last night with a bronze in the 200-meter backstroke and silver in the 200 individual medleys behind Michael Phelps.
It was the last competitive race between the longtime rivals since Phelps is retiring after the Olympics.
"Yeah, I wanted to get all gold’s in my events, but you know it didn`t happen," Lochte said. "I`m going to have to live with that and move on and learn from it, and try not to make the same mistakes in the next four years."
Lochte plans to swim on to the 2016 Rio Games, but he`s going to make at least one important change.
"I`m going to be training differently," he said. "I got a birthday tomorrow. It`s definitely time to take it down a little."
He turns 28 on Friday and his immediate plans included eating at McDonald`s, which is free in the athlete’s village. Lochte said he had the fast food chain`s meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner over 10 days at the 2008 Beijing Games.
"I witnessed that," a smiling Phelps said. Lochte won one more medal in London than he did four years ago, when he had two gold’s and two bronzes.
"How many people walked out with five medals? Its way above average," his coach Gregg Troy said. "It`s just if you come with real high expectations sometimes you get them and sometimes you don`t."
PTI
First Published: Friday, August 3, 2012, 12:37
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