Ryan Lochte’s elaborate lie to cover up a late-night indiscretion in Rio has made the six-time Olympic gold medallist a sponsorship pariah, costing him millions of dollars.

Things could have turned out so much better for the US swimmer if he’d only remembered one basic rule – ‘never lie to your mother’.

And it would have helped if someone told his mother not to casually mention it to a reporter while sharing a bus.

What first hit the news as a report of four US swimmers being robbed at gunpoint was followed by denials, confirmations, altered stories, arrest warrants and ultimately an apology from Lochte after it emerged he created the whole story to cover up a sordid altercation at a Rio petrol station.

His reputation is in tatters and all four of his sponsors have now dropped him in the wake of the scandal as his name becomes a euphemism for making up an elaborate fantasy.

Yet if he hadn’t chosen to tell his mother the story in the early hours of August 14, chances are no one would ever have known.

The Lochte robbery story emerged after Australian Fox Sports journalist Ben Way broke the news to the world in a series of tweets.

BREAKING: @USASwimming Gold medallist Ryan Lochte has been held up at gunpoint at a party in Brazil.
Details on @FOXSportsNews 500.

— Ben Way (@BenWayAUS) August 14, 2016

Lochte called his mother Ileana immediately afterwards. She told @FOXSportsNews it was "terrifying" and has just left her hotel to meet him.

— Ben Way (@BenWayAUS) August 14, 2016

The International Olympic Committee refuted the claims citing the US Olympic Committee and Lochte, before USA Today published its own story after contacting Lochte’s mother, Ileana. All while Lochte was apparently fast asleep at the US team’s HQ.

The circumstances of Way breaking the story are as bizarre as the ensuing scandal.

Way told Sports Illustrated while in Rio that he and a cameraperson had concluded an interview with Australian gold medallist Mack Horton at the Grand Mercure hotel next to the athletes’ village and caught an Olympic shuttle bus back to the press centre.

Way said when they were on the bus, a middle-aged blonde woman came out who “was hobbling terribly and looked in great discomfort”.

Unknown to the journalist at the time, the woman was Ileana Lochte.

One wonders whether Ryan and Ileana Lochte are still this cosy. Photo: Twitter

“Shortly into the trip I asked [Ileana] if she was ok,” Way was quoted as saying. “She proceeded to tell me how terrible her stay had been. She’d broken her foot and now her son had been held up at gunpoint.”

After establishing her son was an athlete, Ms Lochte told the Fox Sports pair that he was “prone to big nights and that sort of stuff” and had “bleached white hair, or grey hair, or blue hair, I don’t really know what it is”.

It was then Fox Sports cameraman realised they were talking about Ryan Lochte and the story Ms Lochte told Way would spark an international scandal.

“As you can imagine, my Twitter feed went into meltdown, but I had no reason to doubt Ileana Lochte’s version of events, and by this point she had repeated the story to USA Today,” Way said.

Ileana and Ryan Lochte have enjoyed a very public and strong mother and son relationship.

One must now question how that relationship will fare after Lochte’s lie and his mother’s readiness to repeat it has cost the athlete his reputation and all of his personal sponsors.