Gregory Efthimios Louganis (/luːˈɡeɪnɪs/;[1] born January 29, 1960) is an American Olympicdiver who won gold medals at the1984 and1988 Summer Olympics on the springboard and platform. He is the only man and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games. He has been called both "the greatest American diver"[2] and "probably the greatest diver in history".[3]
Louganis was born inEl Cajon, California, and is ofSamoan and Swedish descent. His teenage biological parents placed him for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by hisadoptive parents, Frances and Peter Louganis. His adoptive father was ofGreek descent.[4] Louganis reconnected with his biological father, Fouvale Lutu, in 1984. Through the help of DNA tests and his half-siblings, he found his biological mother in 2017.[5]
He started taking dance, acrobatics, and gymnastics classes at 18 months, after witnessing his sister's classes and attempting to join in. By the age of three, he was practicing daily and was competing and giving public performances.[6] For the next few years, he regularly competed and performed at various places including nursing homes and the local naval base. As a child, he was diagnosed withasthma andallergies, so to help with the conditions, he was encouraged to continue the dance and gymnastics classes. He also took up trampolining, and at the age of nine began diving lessons after the family got a swimming pool.[7] He attendedSanta Ana High School inSanta Ana,Valhalla High School inEl Cajon, andMission Viejo High School inMission Viejo.
In 1978, he subsequently attended theUniversity of Miami, where he majored in drama and continued diving. In 1981, he transferred to theUniversity of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a major in theater and a minor in dance in 1983.[8]
As a Junior Olympic competitor, Louganis caught the eye ofSammy Lee, two-time Olympic champion, who began coaching him.[9] At 16, Louganis took part in the1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legendKlaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coachRon O'Brien of the Mission Viejo Nadadores.
Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but anAmerican boycott of the games prevented him from participating. He was one of 461 athletes to receive aCongressional Gold Medal years later.[10] 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.[7] At the1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.
He won two more world championship titles in 1986.
At the1988 Seoul Olympics, he struck his head on the springboard during the preliminary rounds, leading to aconcussion.[6] He completed the preliminaries despite his injury. He then earned the highest single score of the qualifying round for his next dive and repeated the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal by a margin of 25 points.[7] In the10 m 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 medalistXiong Ni by only 1.14 points.[7] His comeback earned him the title ofABC'sWide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.[11]
Six months before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Louganis was diagnosed with HIV and startedantiretrovirals.[12] After Louganis came out publicly as HIV-positive in 1995, 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 Olympics, given that he had bled into a pool that others then dove into. Louganis has stated that, during the ordeal, he was "paralyzed with fear" that he would infect another competitor or the doctor who treated him. Ultimately, no one else was infected.[13] John Ward, chief of HIV-AIDS surveillance at the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the incident posed no risk to others because any blood was highly diluted by the pool water and "chlorine kills HIV".[14] Since skin is an effective barrier to HIV, the only way the virus could enter would be through an open wound; "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 theNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases'Anthony Fauci at the time.[14]
Louganis got few endorsement deals following his 1984 and 1988 Olympic victories, his one major deal beingSpeedo, a partnership which lasted until 2007. Some of his fellow athletes blamedhomophobia for his lack of deals, since he had been rumored to be gay even before he came out.[15] Louganis has stated that he suspects that his sexuality played a part, although he feels that in part he was simply overshadowed in the public imagination by other American Olympians, most notablyMary Lou Retton.[16]
In 2016, Louganis was pictured on boxes ofWheaties cereal, where prominent American athletes are famously featured, as part of a special "Legends" series that also included 1980s OlympiansJanet Evans andEdwin Moses.[16] This occurred approximately a year after aChange.org petition was launched that requested that he be featured, althoughGeneral Mills denied any influence from the petition.[17]
In November 2010, Louganis began coaching divers of a wide range of ages and abilities in the SoCal Divers Club inFullerton, California.[18]
He was a mentor to the U.S. diving team at the London 2012 Olympics and the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics.[6][19]
Louganis had been a theater major in college, and in the late 1980s and 1990s, he appeared in a number of movies, includingTouch Me in 1997.[20]
In 1993, he played the role of Darius in anOff-Broadway production of the playJeffrey.[21] In 1995, he starred for six weeks in the Off-Broadway production ofDan Butler's one man-show about gay life,The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me, taking over from Butler himself. In the play he portrayed 14 different characters.[22]
In 2008, he appeared in the filmWatercolors, in the role of Coach Brown, a swimming instructor in a high school.
In 2012, he appeared in the ninth episode of the second season ofIFC's comedy seriesPortlandia, playing himself.
In September 2000, Louganis appeared onHollywood Squares as a member of famous Olympic gold medalists "Dream Team."
In 2013, Louganis was Dive Master in the celebrity diving showSplash onABC, and a diving judge onCelebrity Splash! onChannel 7 in Australia.[23][24]
In 2020, he was a diving judge on the second season of the ABC showHoley Moley.[25]
In 1996, Louganis recounted his story in a bestselling autobiography,Breaking the Surface, co-written withEric 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.[7] The book spent five weeks at number one onThe New York Times Best Seller list.
In 1998, Louganis released avideo diary calledLooking to the Light, which picked up whereBreaking the Surface left off.
In 1999, Louganis co-wrote the bookFor the Life of Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Having a Dog From Adoption and Birth Through Sickness and Health with Betty Sicora Siino.[26][27][28]
After retiring from diving, Louganis began to compete indog agility competitions; he has said that being around the dogs gave him "a sense of security, company and unconditional love".[2] His dogs have included Dr. Schivago; Captain Woof Blitzer; Nipper and son, Dobby, both championJack Russell terriers; Gryff (Gryffindor), aborder collie; and Hedwig, aHungarian Pumi. Nipper was named for theRCA dog, while Gryff, Dobby and Hedwig were named forHarry Potter characters, as Louganis is a self-described "huge Harry Potter fan."[29][30][31][32][33]
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Louganis is a gay rights activist,[34][35][36] as well as an HIV awareness advocate. He has worked frequently with theHuman Rights Campaign to defend the civil liberties of the LGBT community and people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.[37]
In the October/November 2010 issue ofABILITY Magazine, Louganis stated that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was "absurd," "unconstitutional," and a "witch-hunt." He added that "gay men and women have been serving this country for years ... [it's] basically encouraging people who are serving our country to lie to each other."[38]
Louganis is on the board of directors to the USA-based chapter of the charitable foundation ofPrincess Charlene of Monaco.[39]
In 2023, it was reported that Louganis was auctioning three of his five Olympic medals in an effort to fund theDamien Center, Indiana's oldest and largest AIDS services center. "The medals, they're in the history books," he said. "Instead of holding on to them, I'm aiming to share my piece of Olympic history with collectors; together, we can help the Damien Center and its community to grow and thrive."[40] Instead, Louganis auctioned the medals to fund his retirement toPanama.[41]
From 1983 to 1989, Louganis was involved romantically with his manager, R. James "Jim" Babbitt. Louganis has described the relationship as abusive, saying that, at one point in 1983, Babbitt raped him at knife point.[13] Louganis also accused Babbitt of taking 80 percent of his earnings.[42] Six months before the 1988 Olympics, Louganis was diagnosed with HIV; he had contracted the virus from Babbitt.[13] His doctor placed him on theantiretroviral drugAZT, which he took every four hours round the clock.[13] In 1989, Louganis obtained arestraining order against Babbitt.[42] Babbitt died of AIDS in 1990.[13]
When Louganis turned 33, in 1993, he agreed to gather friends and family for a birthday party, but one that he envisioned as a final goodbye, as he was in failing health and thought he would soon die of AIDS.[3] But, with treatment, he kept going and, in 1994, at the opening ceremony at that year'sGay Games, Louganis came out publicly as gay in a pre-taped announcement, at the encouragement of the event's organizers.[43] Even before then, however, he led a life that has been described as "openly gay."[13] In 1995, around the time of the release of his memoir,Breaking the Surface, Louganis revealed his HIV status in an interview withBarbara Walters, speaking openly, for the first time, about being both gay and HIV-positive.[6]
In June 2013, Louganis announced, inPeople magazine, his engagement to his partner, paralegal Johnny Chaillot.[44] The two were married on October 12, 2013,[45] but on June 18, 2021, Louganis revealed onInstagram that he and Chaillot were ending their marriage.[46]
As a follow-up to the success of the book, Canadian television and film directorSteven Hilliard Stern directedBreaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story in 1997, starringMario Lopez as Louganis, with Louganis also appearing in certain scenes of thetelevision film and asnarrator.[47] Louganis also produced a video diary calledLooking To the Light, which picked up whereBreaking the Surface left off.[citation needed]
ActorMichael Fassbender took Louganis's gait and mannerisms as inspiration for his portrayal ofan advanced humanoid robot in the 2012 filmPrometheus,[48] stating that "Louganis was my first inspiration. I figured that I'd sort of base my physicality roughly around him, and then it kind of went from there."[49]
Louganis was the subject of the documentaryBack on Board which aired on HBO on August 4, 2015.[50]
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