Ryan Lochte was looking forward to competing in the Olympics this summer. However, with the games being postponed until the summer of next year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Lochte will have to wait a little longer to compete against the best swimmers in the world. But he’s okay with that. Lochte was recently on Good Morning America and reacted to the news of the Olympics being moved back to summer 2021.
“As soon as I saw it I was disappointed. I mean, I have trained four years for this moment, and this is probably one of my biggest Olympics — that I have ever had in my career,” Lochte said. “But this is bigger than me, this is bigger than the Olympians. This is affecting the entire world. And right now our main thing is staying safe and staying healthy.”
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Lochte went on to say that he will make adjustments to his training and will be ready to get things going next year.
“Training will never be perfect, and there’s always going to be something like a bump in the road, and that’s how us athletes train, and this is just another bump in the road,” he said. “The Olympics are not canceled. They’re just postponed. So now you have to adjust your training for another year, and just — trust the process,” he continued. “Everything happens for a reason.”
On Tuesday, it was announced by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he reached an agreement with International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach to postpone the Olympics. With coronavirus making an impact on the entire world, athletes can’t train right now, which would have made the Olympics challenging to take place at the end of July.
“The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present,” a statement from the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee said. “Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.”
Lochte, 35, is one of the most decorated swimmers in Olympic history. He has won 12 Olympic medals including six gold. All of Lochte’s gold medals came in the last four Olympic games.
