Ryan Lochte believes he has his swimming suspensions to thank for his marriage and kids.
The 35-year-old Olympic swimmer and his wife, Kayla Rae Reid, have children Caiden, three, and Liv, 13 months, together, and Ryan believes being suspended for 14 months in 2018 by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for receiving an intravenous infusion, helped him to get his life back on track.
Ryan, who strongly denied "putting anything illegal" in his body, told the New York Post’s Page Six: "I don’t have any regrets, because if that didn’t happen then I don’t know where Id be, like I probably wouldn’t be married and I probably wouldn’t have kids. So I mean it was a way of someone saying, ‘Like, you need to slow down, and you need to get your life in hand."
Ryan also received a 10-month suspension from the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee and USA Swimming after falsely claiming to have been robbed at gunpoint during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
And, he admitted that losing lucrative sponsorship deals after the incident "just sucks".
He said: "It definitely stinks. I mean, there’s not much that I can really say, I mean it just sucks."
Meanwhile, Ryan has a new documentary, ‘In Deep with Ryan Lochte’, which he hopes will show people who he really is.
He said: "I did it because a lot of people when they hear my name they get a misconception, and I just wanted people to know the real me, and how its been a rollercoaster ride. Especially in the past four years. But I’m in a good place right now, I mean I couldn’t be happier."