10 reasons why we love US Olympic swimmer and heat’s hottest Olympian Ryan Lochte!

Posted by Ellie Henman on 07 August 2012 11:21 Comments

Hands up who hasn’t seen or heard of the amazing Ryan Lochte – whose antics out of the pool make as much of a splash as swimming. If you raised your hand, then you're missing out big time. Ryan is the US Olympic swimmer who wears a diamante thing in his mouth.

You voted for him as your hottest athlete in our Olympic poll and he’s fast become one of our favourite Olympians of all time. Not only is he crazy hot, he's also a hoot a minute.To celebrate him taking heat's hottest Olympian crown, we thought we’d share our favourite things about the quirky American.

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His Twitter feed is a constant source of inspiration – when he’s not in the pool, he is a deeply profound thinker.

“Too travel is sometimes better to arrive” – Too true Ryan.

“Sometimes u just gotta stay ahead of ur shadow” – We’ve never actually tried otherwise.

“u can’t always walk a straight line, especially if the line is crooked” – Imagine if it was a circle?

And our personal favourite:

“Can u catch lightening in a bottle and set the water on fire?”

This is so deep. So deep.

He doesn’t hold anything back – or in, apparently

The 28-year-old is known for his honesty but even the most open folk normally draw the line at some point. Not Ryan.

Last week he admitted to taking a wee in the Olympic Pool. Is that a treasonous offence?

After being asked whether he had ever done this before, Ryan let it all out of the bag.

“Not during the races, but I sure did before in warm up There's something about getting into chlorine water that you just automatically go”

Shame they didn’t have the pink, wee dye of shame to catch him out.

Not content with just getting to grips with his native tongue, Ryan has created his own catchphrase. ‘Jeah’ – yes, it is just, yeah – with a J at the start.

He says it can be used to express a multitude of emotions and was inspired by rapper Young Jeezy.

“It means almost like everything, like happy, like if you have a good swim you say jeah! I guess it means good.”

Excellent. We best warn Joey Essex that his verbal ‘hip dictionary’ has got competition.

Not one to shy away from attention, the American is famed for wearing a tooth grill, but he went the extra mile for London 2012.

His latest bobby dazzler is a red, white and blue, stars and stripes Olympic extravaganza made of diamonds and rubies.

The creation, designed by rapper, Paul Wall, cost an estimated $25,000 – that’s $1,000 per tooth. Good. Grief.

He’s also been known to wear jewellery coveted by the likes of Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg. He must be the trendiest athlete in the village fo sho.

When he packed his bags for London we hope he didn’t forget his first aid kit. Along with all his other hilarious quirks, it seems that Ryan’s also a tad injury-prone. Some of his most notable incidents include –

• Spraining his ankle whilst chasing his Doberman
• Hurting his knee whilst breakdancing
• Crashing on a shooter and damaging his knee – again
• Fracturing his foot whilst on a skateboard
• Straining to reach his phone in the backseat of his car and pulling a major ligament

Luckily London's got the Olympic road lanes so we can speed him to A & E anytime he needs to go... which could be any minute now.

They’ve got the grill thing going on together and Ryan has admitted that he listens to rapper Lil’ Wayne before he goes into big races.

Before one of his competitions last week, Wayne posted him some love on Twitter.

"Much luv to Ryan Lochte and the USA swim team!!!!"

Ryan was quick to get back to him.

“Thanks man appreciate it. When I get back we gotta go skateboarding #Jeah"

With your track record Ryan, maybe give that a miss.

Ryan's the proud owner of over 130 pairs of shoes. And this Olympic medalist has made sure he’s never short of a snazzy pair to put on.

“I want to be different, and fashion gives me that outlet to do that”

It does indeed Ryan.

Our favourites include a pair of neon green, high top trainers with gold detailing. The swimmer even has his famous catchphrase and surname printed onto the soles of them.

Fabulous jeah.

Mummy Lochte is as hapless as he is – bless her

New to the media game, Ryan’s mum has dropped some right corkers recently, getting him into hot water.

Our favourite verbal gush so far was when she was chatting about Ryan’s love life. Cue mortification.

“He goes out on one-night stands. He’s not able to give fully to a relationship because he’s always on the go.”

We can just imagine his face.

Ryan soon emerged to try and clear up the matter. Poor Mrs Lochte had got the wrong end of the stick, apparently...

“She meant since the last four years I just wanted to focus on swimming, and I didn’t really have time for a relationship.”

He says, as he bundles her into the car and shouts, ‘Just drive!’

Not really. But we would.

Ryan loves his loyal fans so much so that he often arranges time to to meet and greet them.

How sweet.

And we listened to a phone call Ryan made to one of his biggest fans. We admit, it isn’t the most riveting of conversations but it clearly made her day.

In his latest competition, you can win entry to a party with him in London. This obviously hasn’t gone down too well with his home fans who can’t afford to jet over to Blighty.

It’s the thought that counts though, right?

Ryan revealed that he dreams of becoming a fashion designer when his swimming career ends.

His gorgeous face and washboard abs are no stranger to the fashion world though – he used to be signed to Ford modeling agency.

“Eventually when I'm done with swimming, I want to have my own clothing line. I have a bunch of creative ideas – I want to tie in rock star, with hip-hop and business all together."