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“I honestly thought about it, and just decided I don’t have it in me,” he said. “I didn’t want to spend another minute on it.

“I would have hoped with all three cases gone that everybody would have seen this is not going anywhere, and just let it go and hope everybody learned something. And my family can recover and she can go away and think about something else.

“And of course, her reaction was, ‘I’m going to press on.’ ”

Furlong said that in the beginning, he had thought Robinson’s story was so obviously untrue, no newspaper would publish it.

“I thought this would end in three days. And I was so wrong, and it got worse and worse. And the other thing I realized was that the more you respond to it, the worse it gets,” he said.

“You want to respond, and you see your children struggling, and so you do, and then what was contained is suddenly five times bigger.”

Three years’ worth of legal fees, lost income from speaking engagements cancelled by nervous organizations, the cost to Furlong was considerable. Would he put a number on it?

“I won’t, but it was too much. An outrageous amount,” he said.

“When the Games ended, I can’t imagine there were too many people busier than me. Speaking engagements … and then it just died. And that was retirement planning for me.

“So all of that fell apart, and then my confidence went. It was always sitting there on my shoulder, waiting to jump out.

“Well, it was a lot of money, and some people helped (with the costs) but you know, financially is one thing but the human cost … I’d rather be penniless and respected than rich and reviled.”