Ryan Lochte Injures Leg during Episode 4 of Worst Cooks In America, Leading to Elimination

After a rough first episode and a bounce-back 2nd and 3rd episode, Ryan Lochte’s time on the 30th season of the Food Network’s Worst Cooks in America has come to an end, following an injury to his knee and an unsatisfactory dish.

Episode 3 Recap

In episode 3 of the show, Lochte and the other contestants were first tasked with a relay-style race to create dishes that represented a sort of poolside snacking, fitting for the 12-time Olympic medalist swimmer.

Lochte was paired with fellow blue team member CT Tamburello, a former contestant on The Challenge, and assigned to station 3, tasked with replicating a tuna poke tower with the recipe hidden inside coconuts. Lochte and Tamburello won their station, helping lead the blue team to a 2-1 victory in the Team Challenge.

Next came the Skill Drill Challenge, where cooks were assigned to prepare and cook crab cakes. Since the blue team had won the team challenge, they received the advantage of having all the ingredients already at their stations.

Lochte, though he struggled, earned high praise for his crab cakes, even being told by judges Jeff Mauro and Tiffany Derry that his were the best of any other contestant. Though the main dish seemed to be a hit, he had failed to dress the salad.

For the Main Dish Challenge, contestants were to prepare a red seafood curry with branzino and jasmine rice. Lochte’s fish looked the best, and the judges complimented its cooking, but the rice was undercooked. Despite the setback, Lochte was named a winner of the Main Dish Challenge.

Episode 4 Recap

In the 4th episode, the cooks opened with the assignment of making Tex-Mex style tacos; before they could begin cooking, contestants had to retrieve ingredients that were missing from the provided recipes. Once all of the ingredients were retrieved, then the cooking could begin.

During the cooking process, Lochte turned around to grab something and slipped on a piece of spaghetti that they had to get the ingredients out of to begin the challenge. Lochte’s leg got twisted, the same leg that suffered a torn meniscus in 2021. Though in pain, Lochte pushed through and struggled to get his tacos finished before the time runs out.

Lochte’s final dish was noticeably missing toppings, and he did not use any salt in his dish, Mauro could not eat the taco that Lochte had prepared.

The Olympian was absent from the Main Dish Challenge after injuring his leg while making the Tex-Mex tacos. He could not continue and was therefore eliminated.

Due to Lochte’s exit from the show, no other contestants were eliminated during episode 4, and Lochte’s time on the Food Network show came to an end under unlikely circumstances.