Greg Louganis - Diving Career

Diving Career

As a Junior Olympic competitor Louganis caught the eye of Dr. Sammy Lee, two-time Olympic champion, who began coaching him. At sixteen Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legend Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coach Ron O'Brien. In 1978, he accepted a diving scholarship to the University of Miami where he studied theater, but in 1981 transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but an American boycott of the games prevented him from participating. Louganis won two titles at the world championships in 1982, where he became the first diver in a major international meeting to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.

After winning two more world championship titles in 1986, he repeated his 1984 feat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, although not without difficulties: he suffered a concussion after hitting his head on the springboard during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2½ pike. He completed the preliminaries despite his injury, earning the highest single score of the qualifying for his next dive, and went on to repeat the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal by a margin of 25 points. In the 10m finals he won the gold medal performing a 3.4 difficulty dive in his last attempt, earning 86.70 points for a total of 638.61, surpassing silver medalist Xiong Ni by only 1.14 points. His comeback earned him the title of ABC's Wide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.

At the time of the 1988 accident Louganis did not disclose to the public that he was HIV positive, a diagnosis he had received six months before the Olympics. His doctor placed him on the antiretroviral drug AZT, which he took every four hours round the clock. It was 1994 when Louganis announced to the world that he was gay. He took part in the 1994 Gay Games as a diving announcer as well as putting on a diving exhibition for capacity crowds. In 1995, Louganis cowrote his autobiography Breaking the Surface, with the assistance of author Eric Marcus. In the book Louganis detailed a relationship of domestic abuse and rape, as well as teenage depression, and how he began smoking and drinking at a young age. He also disclosed to the world that he was HIV positive.

As expected at that time, most of his corporate sponsors dropped him as a client when they heard the news of his HIV status. The exception was swimsuit manufacturer Speedo, who retained him as an endorser of their products until 2007. After his announcement, people in and out of the international diving community began to question Louganis's decision not to disclose his HIV status at the time of his head injury during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. But his blood in the pool actually posed about zero risk. The blood was diluted by thousands of gallons of water, and "chlorine kills HIV", said Dr. John Ward, chief of HIV-AIDS surveillance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also, skin is a very effective barrier to HIV. Only a diver with an open wound would face any risk. "If the virus just touches the skin, it is unheard of for it to cause infection: the skin has no receptors to bind HIV," explained Dr. Anthony Fauci.