In this Aug. 9, 2016, file photo, United States' Ryan Lochte checks his time after a men' 4x200-meter freestyle relay heat during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A Brazilian police official told The Associated Press that Lochte fabricated a story about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

As if the bar for acceptable behavior in matters far more important than sports had not been lowered enough in recent months, swimmer Ryan Lochte managed to lower it to new depths.

He trashed a gas-station bathroom in Rio, and he and two of his Olympic buddies were confronted by a security guard nice enough to let them off the hook by paying restitution without calling the cops and frightened enough to pull a gun, and Lochte not only didn’t accept the offer, but embarrassed his country in a way no other American ever had at the Olympics.

Act like fools? No problem, we’ll just blame it on Rio.

Lochte claimed he and two other swimmers were held up at gunpoint and robbed of money after side-swiped by a car. He figured this tale would fly since it became quite fashionable to trash the Olympics host city as a cesspool of pollution and crime. Why not pile on? Nobody would question the story, right? Plus, the ingenious Lochte must have figured that, being in a foreign country, he didn’t have to worry because only the United States is sophisticated enough to have surveillance cameras that expose lies.

Lochte bolted out of the country and left his fellow swimmers to face the music. Ryan “Foxhole” Lochte, a true American hero.

Worse than the act of trashing the bathroom in a drunken fit and every bit as bad as trashing a city and a country that already had enough trash talked at their expense was Lochte’s attempted damage control in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer.

Because he’s a great athlete, he was given the chance to make it all right in the eyes of many apologists with contrition on network television. Instead, he lapsed back into victim mode.

“It’s how you want to make it look like,” Lochte told Lauer. “Whether you call it a robbery or you call it extortion or us paying just for the damages, we don’t know. All we know is there was a gun pointed in our direction and we were demanded to give money.”

At which point Lauer set the record straight that an interpreter let them know that the security guard said if they paid for the damages they caused, there would be no need to call the cops.

“Yeah, so then we had to give the money,” Lochte said.

Well, boo-hoo.

Lochte made a mess and was told he had to clean it up. Instead, he dirtied it up in a way that gives ammunition to America-bashers who consider us bullies who play by our own rules.

At one point during the Lauer interview, Lochte must have forgotten that the lie he told NBC’s Billy Bush in Rio already had been exposed.

First, what he told Bush: “We got pulled over in our taxi and these guys came out with a badge, police badge, no lights, no nothing. They pulled us over. They get out their guns. They told the other swimmers to get down on the ground. They got down on the ground. I refused. I was like, ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground.’ And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, he put it to my forehead and he said get down. I put my hands up, I was like, ‘Whatever.’ He took our money. He took my wallet and he took all the guys’ cash.”

He likes to add color to things to call attention to how wonderful he is, even when lying. Note that he had far more courage than the other two simmers in the fabricated tale.

Back to the Lauer interview, which took place after the world learned that nobody was pulled over on the mean streets of Rio, and the entire incident in which Lochte was the bad guy happened in a convenience store: “We just wanted to get out of there. We were held, I mean there was a gun pointed in our direction.”

He was going to say “held at gunpoint.” Always tell the truth, Ryan, that way you don’t have to remember what you said.

Oh, sure, he tried to say what he was coached to say. He’s embarrassed, sorry, Brazil was a great host, etc. It’s clear he’ll go to his grave believing he somehow was victimized.

The underwhelming aftermath of the hateful lies told by Lochte defies common decency. People are discussing whether he will be allowed to represent the United States again in swimming competitions. The only right answer is not no, but hell no! Why is that even an issue? Do we want the rest of the world to think we’re a bunch of spoiled brats who make a mess and then tell lies that perpetuate negative stereotypes about other countries?

Contrast that attitude with that of University of Kansas graduate Andrea Geubelle, who placed 21st in the qualifying rounds in the triple jump.

Check out the last three words of Geubelle’s final Facebook post from Rio, which appeared below a photo of her with two teammates at the closing ceremonies: “And just like that, the 2016 Olympic Games come to a close! It’s been one for the books, Thank You BRAZIL!”

That’s who I want representing my country and she was the rule, rather than the exception. So get rid of the exceptions, starting with Lochte.