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Greg Louganis
- Three-time Olympian (1976, 1984, 1988)
- 1984, 1988 Olympic gold medalist in the 3m springboard, 10m platform
- 1976 Olympic silver medalist in the 10m platform
- Five-time World champion in 3m springboard, 10m platform (1978, 1982, 1986)
- 47-time U.S. National Diving champion
- Is only the second athlete to win double diving golds in two Olympic Games
- Became the first man to win Olympic double diving golds since American Pete Desjardins in 1928 at the 1984 Olympic Games
- Was the first diver in a major international meet to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges at the 1982 World Championships
- Took gold at the 1979, 1987 Pan American Games in the springboard and platform events
- Won the 1m, 3m and platform events at the national indoor and outdoor championships for five years in a row (1982-1986); six-time springboard, platform champion at the U.S. Olympic Festival (1982-1987)
- Received the 1984 Sullivan Award because of his performance at the 1984 Olympic Games; inducted in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985, International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1993
- Started swimming at age 3 and by 11, just two years after his first diving lesson, he scored a perfect 10 at the 1971 Junior Olympics national competition
- Participated in acrobatics, dance and gymnastics growing up, but the tumbling skills he learned came in handy around the family pool, where he found himself rolling off the end of the diving board … led his father to enroll him in diving classes
- Born to parents of Samoan and Swedish ancestry, but was adopted at 9-months-old to Peter and Frances Louganis, who had already adopted an older daughter
- Grew up with asthma and Dyslexia, was diagnosed HIV positive in 1988, revealed in 1994 that he was a homosexual and in 1995 that he has AIDS
- Wrote his autobiography, Breaking the Surface, which was published in 1995
- Starred two theatre plays and in films “Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story,” “Touch Me,” “It’s My Party” and “D2: The Mighty Ducks”
Considered the greatest diver of all time, Louganis is the first to score over 700 points in a diving competition under the current scoring system and is still the only one to accomplish that feat at an Olympics. However, what most people remember about Louganis is that he went on to win Olympic gold at the 1988 Games despite striking the back of his head on the springboard during the preliminaries. He attempted a reverse 2½ somersault pike in the ninth round of the prelims. Without a strong enough jump, he hit his head on the board and fell clumsily into the water. Thirty-five minutes later, after receiving stitches to his scalp wound, he resumed diving. The following day, he hit all 11 dives and easily won the Olympic gold medal.
After the news came out that he had AIDS, he was critized for competing at the 1988 Olympics. In his autobiography, Breaking the Surface, Louganis talks about that moment in the pool and he was deeply concerned for the other athletes. “All kinds of thoughts raced through my head: What if I cut my scalp? What if I’m bleeding? … In normal circumstances that wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but these were anything but normal circumstances. I was in a total panic that I might cause someone else harm. It was sheer terror. I didn’t even pause to think that I might be badly injured.”
Related Links
Official Web site: Greg Louganis
“I was underwater before I realized that I’d hit my head,” said Louganis in his autobiography, Breaking the Surface. “Once I did, the first emotion I felt was embarrassment: This was the Olympics, I was a gold medalist, and here I’d gone and hit my damn head on the board. I’d had accidents before, but never at the Olympics.”
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Height: 5’9”
Born: 1/29/1960
Hometown: El Cajon, Calif.
Sport: Diving
Event: 3m springboard, 10m platform
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