Greg Louganis

Diver

• Born: January 29, 1960
• Place of Birth: El Cajon, California

SPORT: Diving

Early Life

Gregory Efthimios Louganis is of Samoan and northern European descent. He was adopted by Frances and Peter Louganis nine months after his birth on January 29, 1960. Louganis has an older sister, Despina, who is also adopted. They grew up in El Cajon, a working-class suburb of San Diego, California. Both children began taking dancing lessons when they were young.

Louganis’s early school experiences were challenging. Other children ridiculed him because of his passion for dance. They called him stupid because he stammered and had severe reading difficulties. He was even a physical misfit, with dark hair and skin in a school of mostly blond, blue-eyed children. Louganis also had problems with his father, a hard-living tuna fisherman who could not understand his more sensitive son.

Training

Louganis learned gymnastics as a child. When he began tumbling off the diving board in the family’s backyard pool, Peter Louganis decided to enroll his son in local diving classes. To make up for his difficulties at school, Louganis concentrated on diving. At the age of eleven, just two years after starting lessons, Louganis scored a perfect ten in diving at the 1971 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Junior Olympics in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

At this competition, Louganis impressed the spectators, including Dr. Sammy Lee, the gold medalist in diving in both the 1948 and 1952 Olympics. Four years later, when Peter Louganis asked Dr. Lee to coach Louganis for the 1976 Olympics, Lee quickly agreed.

Meanwhile, Louganis's home life was growing increasingly difficult, so he moved in with his coach’s family. Lee was a strict disciplinarian. He set up a rigorous training schedule and helped Louganis build self-confidence. Under Lee’s coaching, Louganis qualified for both the springboard and platform events for the 1976 Olympics. He finished sixth in springboard diving. He did even better in platform diving, finishing second behind the favorite, two-time gold medalist Klaus Dibiasi. Nevertheless, Louganis returned home feeling that he had failed. Back at high school, he had become a hero, but he was still withdrawn and without real friends. Around that time, Louganis experienced a long period of illness and injuries. As he became more and more unhappy, he started to smoke and drink.

For a while, Louganis did not train or compete much. By the spring of 1978, however, he was again winning titles at competitions such as the National AAU Indoor and Outdoor Diving Championships, the Hall of Fame International Diving Meet, and the World Aquatic Championship.

In the fall of 1978, Louganis accepted a scholarship at the University of Miami, mostly because it was far from his life in California. He learned for the first time that his reading problem was caused by dyslexia, a learning disorder. He finally believed that he was not actually intellectually limited.

Competitions

Louganis continued to dive fearlessly. Experts expected him to win two gold medals at the 1980 Olympics. However, the United States boycotted the 1980 games to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, so Louganis was unable to compete. In January 1981, he transferred to the University of California at Irvine so he could train with Ron O’Brien, the head coach at the famous Mission Viejo Swim Club. In 1983, Louganis received his B.A. with a theater major and dance minor.

During these years, Louganis was virtually unchallenged in diving competitions. In the 1982 World Aquatic Championship, he became the first diver to earn a perfect score from all seven judges in an international competition. In 1982, he won the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform diving events at the national indoor and outdoor diving championships. His winning streak was not broken until 1987.

Louganis developed sophisticated new dives and introduced them into his sport. He was classically proportioned for a diver. He had great flexibility and balance because of early dance and gymnastic training. Because his legs were strong, he was able to jump high off the board and have more time for twists and turns in his dives. By raising his own standards of excellence, Louganis also raised the standards of world diving competitions.

Despite his diving success, Louganis still had personal problems. In 1983, an incident gave Louganis the strength to change his life. During a break in a swim meet, he saw a young diver smoking. When questioned, the boy said he wanted to be just like Greg Louganis, and Greg Louganis smoked. Louganis took a long, hard look at himself. He stopped smoking and drinking and started to accept himself. He began to take himself less seriously and decided that it was acceptable to be shy.

When the time came for the 1984 Olympics, Louganis was prepared both physically and mentally. He won gold medals in the springboard and platform diving competitions, becoming the first man in fifty-six years to do so. He also became the first diver ever to earn more than 700 points in a single Olympic event.

After facing his fears, Louganis felt he had something to offer others. He began telling his story to thousands of teenagers at school assemblies. He did television commercials and public service spots, moving toward his long-time goal of an acting career. In 1984, Louganis won the prestigious James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as the outstanding amateur athlete of the year. In 1985, he was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame. In 1986, he was awarded the Jesse Owens International Trophy for excellence in athletics and international relations.

In the 1988 Olympics, Louganis again won both the springboard and platform competitions, as he had done in 1984. This time, though, he did so after hitting his head on the springboard in a preliminary dive. With stitches in his scalp and his confidence shaken, Louganis immediately went back to dive again and did so almost perfectly. The coach of the Chinese team later said, “We must all learn from Louganis’s grit and determination. In adversity, he was able to rise up and win the championship.” Louganis later revealed, in 1995, that he had been diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) earlier that year. He kept his diagnosis a secret since South Korea had placed a travel ban on those with HIV. Had he announced his condition, he would not have been able to compete.

After the 1988 Olympics, Louganis retired from competitive diving. He spent time speaking to dyslexia organizations, youth clubs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation groups, and diving clinics about the challenges in his life. He made his professional dance debut with the Indiana Repertory Theatre and continued to pursue a serious acting career.

In 1995, Louganis published his autobiography, Breaking the Surface, in which he discussed openly for the first time his struggle for acceptance as a gay man and the turmoil of living with HIV. A television film of the same name aired in 1997. In the years following his historic diving career, he became an inspiration to athletes and fans alike.

In addition to a growing list of film and theater credits, Louganis also received recognition as an advocate for those living with AIDS and for his activism with the Human Rights Campaign. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1999, he published his second book, For the Life of Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Having a Dog in Your Life, from Adoption and Birth through Sickness and Health. After retiring from competitive diving, Louganis trained and bred dogs, and for many years he was a groomer for the nonprofit organization Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS). In October 2013, he married his boyfriend, Johnny Chaillot, who worked as a paralegal. Louganis appeared in the 2015 HBO documentary Back on Board: Greg Louganis. He continues to mentor young divers for USA Diving.

Summary

Greg Louganis is considered to be one of the greatest divers of all time. An equally important achievement may be his personal victory over self-doubt. By recognizing his fears and rising above them, Louganis grew from an introverted, troubled child into a relaxed, confident adult who is comfortable with himself and others.

Louganis was a diver of unequaled grace and power. His goal was not only to win, but also to raise his own level of performance and the standards of his sport. Louganis said, “I don’t want to be remembered as the greatest diver who ever lived. I want to be able to see the greatest diver. I hope I live to see the day when my records are broken.”

Bibliography

D'Addario, Daniel. "Athlete Greg Louganis on His New Documentary: 'I Was Thinking I Was Not Going to See 30.'" Time. Time, 3 Aug. 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.

Edelson, Paula. Superstars of Men’s Swimming and Diving. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999.

“Greg Louganis Changed Perception of Those Living with HIV​.” AARP, 28 November 2022, www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2022/greg-louganis-changed-perceptions-about-hiv.html. Accessed 13 June 2024.

Knapp, Ron. Top Ten American Men’s Olympic Gold Medalists. Springfield: Enslow, 2000.

Louganis, Greg, and Eric Marcus. Breaking the Surface. Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2006.

Louganis, Greg, and Betsy Sikora Siino. For the Life of Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Having a Dog in Your Life, from Adoption and Birth Through Sickness and Health. New York: Pocket, 1999.

O'Neill, Tracy. "Greg Louganis: Far from Falling." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 4 Aug. 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum, 2008.