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Ryan Lochte: Not As Terrible An Interview

We were as fascinated by the Ryan Lochte phenomenon as anyone during the Olympics – so much so that we’ve continued to chronicle basically everything the guy’s done in public even since the Games ended. At the forefront of these public activities have, of course, been televised interviews. As you undoubtedly know by now, interviews are rather famously not a strong point of Mr. Lochte’s, something we kept hoping he would demonstrate in every interview he gave – and there have been many.

While he sometimes obliged, however, he’d sometimes leave us thinking: “You know, that wasn’t so bad.” We mentioned it when discussing his appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from last Friday: at times, Lochte sounds almost comfortable giving interviews. He’s putting some real answers together. And it seems the folks at BuzzFeed noticed the same thing. They made internet magic with the first “Ryan Lochte is a terrible interview” video, and now, they’re back with an update of sorts, documenting his improvement:

If you talk to a coach about a player’s improvement, there’s a good chance that the coach will at some point invoke “reps.” The more you do, the better you get. Clearly, we’re seeing the same thing happen with Lochte. Not only is he getting interview reps – he’s getting specific story reps. He almost couldn’t help but improve. Of course, too much improvement would be a shame, in a way – we enjoyed hearing about the rocks in his cell phone background as much as anyone. But we can’t get mad at the guy – as he might say (after carefully rehearsing, of course): “Aren’t I just trying to get better?”