Ryan Lochte, the second most decorated male Olympic swimmer of all time, has been banned 14 months for receiving an intravenous infusion without a therapeutic use exemption, the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) announced on Monday.
Usada said it became aware of the potential violation when the 33-year-old American star posted a since-deleted photo of himself receiving the injection on his social media accounts with the hashtag #ivdrip, adding that Lochte “fully cooperated” with the ensuing investigation.
US officials clarified that Lochte, who has brought home 12 medals from the past four Olympics including six golds, was not using a banned substance, but that doping rules prohibit athletes from receiving IV infusions or injections unless related a hospitalization or through an additional exemption.
Nick Zaccardi (@nzaccardi)
This is the photo that got Ryan Lochte banned 14 months. pic.twitter.com/1CljxSFlzy
“On May 24, 2018, Lochte, 33, posted an image on social media depicting himself receiving an intravenous infusion,” the national anti-doping organization said in a release issued Monday. “A subsequent investigation by Usada, with which Lochte fully cooperated, revealed that Lochte received an intravenous infusion of permitted substances at an infusion clinic in a volume greater than 100ml in a 12-hour period without a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE).
“Intravenous infusions or injections in a volume greater than 100ml within a 12-hour period are prohibited at all times – except for those legitimately received in the course of hospital treatment, surgical procedures, or clinical diagnostic investigations under the Usada Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policies, and the Fédération Internationale de Natation Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.”
Usada said the ban is retroactive to 24 May, which was the day he posted the photo, and will run through June 2019, keeping him out of the next two major international meets: August’s Pan Pacific Championships and the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. The punishment would appear to cast doubt on his stated goal of making the US team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, during which Lochte will turn 36.
Lochte, who is holding a news conference on Monday afternoon in Florida to address the incident, will also be withdrawn from the four events he’d entered at the US national championships, which begin Wednesday in Irvine, California.
USA Swimming and Lochte’s agent did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment from the Guardian.
The sanction marks the second extended suspension in two years for Lochte, who previously served a 10-month ban and was made to forfeit $100,000 in bonus money that went went with his gold medal at the 2016 Olympics for his role in vandalizing a gas station in Brazil with three other US swimmers during a drunken night out at the Rio Games.
The embarrassing fallout stemming from Lochte’s attempted cover-up story of a ‘robbery’ came to overshadow the final week of the Olympics and cost him four sponsorships, including deals with Speedo and Ralph Lauren. Additionally, Lochte faced charges of falsely communicating a crime to authorities, but an appellate court in Brazil ultimately dismissed the criminal case nearly 11 months after the incident took place.
Lochte becomes the second American swimmer to be hit with a lengthy suspension during the run-up to US nationals after former University of Texas star Madisyn Cox, an individual medley specialist who captured a gold and a bronze medal at last year’s world championships, who last week was banned for two years after testing positive for the stimulant trimetazidine by Fina, the sport’s world governing body.