THE OLYMPICS ARE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL ATHLETIC COMPETITION NOT THE INDIVIDUAL ATHLETES PERSONAL LOVE AND SEX LIVES............

Today, American Olympic Swimmer Ryan Lochte turns 28.  He is finishing his greatly hyped and personally predicted performance in the 2012 London Summer Games of the 30th Olympiad, with 2 Gold Medals, 2 Silver Medals, 1 Bronze Medal, not quite the 5 Gold Medals, he, his family, and fans, thought he would win.  Taking nothing away from his excellent swimming skills and world record setting achievements, as well as his performance at these Olympic Games, but I like many others find ourselves amazed how he and his family have entered the question of his love and sex life into the Summer Olympics story he is living this week.  For his mother Ileana (Ike) to say in an NBC News Today Show interview, that because of his swimming her son Ryan doesn't have time for a romantic relationship, and goes out on, "one night stands", and his sisters in another NBC interview with the members of the Lochte Family to refer to his sex appeal saying even matronly co-workers are turned on by him, and for Ryan himself in pre Competition interviews to speak in the media about his sleeping and sex preferences, all seem strange self and family inclusions at the height of his participation in the Olympic Games.  No matter how beautiful, handsome, alluring, or appealing, to the countless women and men who are fans or viewers the Olympic competitors are, they are on the world stage because they are strenuously trained and qualified athletes, not because they are celebrities with sex appeal or marketing potential.  Ryan Lochte's assertion that 75 % of those in the Olympic Village are having sexual relationships and that he didn't participate in Beiing because he had a girlfriend, but will have fun this time because he's single, is a bizarre admission / justification, competing with - if not overshadowing the positive coverage derived from his medal winning swimming performance.   Objections to his mother's Today Show interview comments have intensified in recent days with a mostly negative reaction, that today both Ryan and his mother attempted to clear up her statement about his "one night stands", with mother Ike, telling USA Today, "What kind of mom is going to say that ?" (having a son who goes out on one night stands) "Especially being a mom and having two daughters".  Yet she did say that, so is this an apology, a denial, or redaction of the record ?  Supposedly both Ryan and his mom knew that she meant dating not hookups, it's the rest of us who misunderstood.  Ryan goes on to tell the USA Today interviewer, "I knew how the media was going to take it, and I know what my mom really meant...She's new to the whole media (experience) so she really didn't understand that they were going to twist it, and make it bad...She was definitely like, why did they do that ?  She is so oblivious to everything".  So it seems his mother has to disavow she ever said the words, and he has to diss his mom, in order to counter the coverage and fallout generated by her earlier comments during the past few days.   Being new to the media and oblivious to everything like this is a large stretch of at least eight years time, as Ryan swam in and medaled at the 2004 Athens, and 2008 Beiing Olympic Games.  I think there is another reason Ryan's love and sex life have been sprung into the Olympic 2012 spotlight.  Namely, his family's desire to share in his celebrity in a more pronounced and profitable way, ( reality show here we come !) and as a marketing strategy for the shoes, fashion design line, he is beginning to produce. (which might even include jewelled mouth grilles !!)  The excellence in Olympic competition that Ryan Lochte, as well as Missy Franklin, Tyler Clary, Rebecca Soni, Nathan Adrian, Allison Schmitt, along with Michael Phelps, in Swimming; and in Women's Gymnastics Gaby Douglas and the Fab 5, have gained at the one week mark in the London Summer Games, is so much more pertinent and meaningful.  Besides, overnight Gaby's Gold Medal victory landed her on boxes of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, as America's newest and youngest athletic phenom !!!!!!!!!!!!............Fr.  Troy