ESPN.com: Louganis never lost drive to dive Louganis never lost drive to dive By Ron Flatter Special to ESPN.com To pick one athlete as the greatest ever in his or her sport is a good way to start an argument. But maybe not in every sport. Try thinking of anyone who was a better diver than Greg Louganis. As a troubled youth, Greg Louganis used diving as an escape. He found peace at the top of the ladder. Pat McCormick? Like Louganis, she doubled with gold medals in the springboard and the platform in successive Olympics. Klaus Dibiasi? Like Louganis, he won five Olympic medals. But McCormick and Dibiasi were not as dominant as Louganis. Not just in their time. For all-time. The first to amass 700 points in a diving competition under the current scoring system, Louganis is still the only one who has accomplished that in the Olympics. By the time anyone has a chance of matching that feat, 16 years will have passed since he first did it in 1984.

Only the 1980 American boycott of the Moscow Games prevented Louganis from piling more gold onto his Olympic resumé. Even when he hit his head on the springboard executing a dive in 1988, Louganis still won an Olympic championship. That dive also caused him some concern for another reason. At the time, Louganis secretly knew he was HIV-positive. If he had bled into the pool -- which he did not -- could Louganis have spread the AIDS virus to another competitor? Although doctors agreed the odds of that happening were minute, Louganis later said, "It must seem irresponsible now, but I hadn't considered the possibility that I could injure myself in that way." By 1994, Louganis had publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, and in 1995, his autobiography "Breaking the Surface" became a best-seller shortly after he told Barbara Walters on national television he was suffering from full-blown AIDS. The life story of Gregory Efthimios Louganis began in San Diego on Jan. 29, 1960, when he was born to parents of Samoan and Swedish ancestry.

Both were only 15, and they gave up their nine-month-old child for adoption to Peter and Frances Louganis, who had already adopted an older daughter. As a youngster, Louganis was ridiculed by schoolmates for his ethnicity, his dyslexia and his choices of extracurricular activities -- acrobatics, dance and gymnastics. But the tumbling skills he learned came in handy around the family pool, where Louganis found himself rolling off the end of the diving board. This led his father to enroll him in diving classes. Only two years after his first lesson, the 11-year-old Louganis turned heads when he scored a perfect 10 at the 1971 Junior Olympics national competition in Colorado Springs, Colo. But Louganis was not yet fully dedicated to diving. By the time he was 12, he was doing speed, selling marijuana at school and even attempting suicide. Eventually, he turned more and more to diving, the one area of his life that gave him self-confidence and success. Before long, daily diving practices became Louganis' outlet, affording him a solitude he desired during his adolescence.

Louganis moved away from his parents in 1975 and into the home of his coach, Dr. Sammy Lee, an Olympic diving gold medalist in 1948 and 1952 who had seen young Greg's perfect dive in Colorado Springs. Lee, an Olympic medal in his mind, coached Louganis on a strict schedule of training sessions. ZONE POLL Previous poll results In 1976, the hard work paid off for Louganis, who won an Olympic silver medal for his performance in the platform, losing to Dibiasi. No one knew it yet, but the Italian diving great was passing the torch to the 16-year-old Californian. Not that any clues were coming from Louganis himself. Returning home with the platform silver and a sixth-place finish in the springboard, he felt he had failed in Montreal. He became more and more introspective, and he turned to alcohol and cigarettes. Hoping to get as far away from the world in which he grew up as he could, Louganis decided to go from one coast to the other when he accepted a diving scholarship from the University of Miami.

Shortly before going off to college, Louganis won his first world platform title in 1978. He would win four more world championships besides 47 AAU national titles. After winning the springboard and platform at the 1979 Pan-American Games, Louganis was expected to win Olympic gold in Moscow. That was before President Jimmy Carter called for a U.S. boycott in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Maybe Louganis was just not meant to be in the Soviet Union. The year before the 1980 Olympics, he hit his head on the platform diving at a meet in Tbilisi, a harbinger of things to come nine years later. The boycott only postponed the inevitable for Louganis, who, in 1981, had transferred to UC Irvine in his native Southern California. He made the move to get closer to coach Ron O'Brien, who headed up the prestigious Mission Viejo Swim Club. At the 1982 World Championships, Louganis became the first diver in a major international meet to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges.

He embarked on a national winning streak that would not end until 1987. Along the way, he earned his bachelor of arts degree in theater, and he quit smoking and drinking. Louganis was ready to conquer life -- and the Olympics. In winning both the springboard and the platform at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Louganis became the first man to pull off that Olympic double since American Pete Desjardins in 1928. He also was the first to pass 700 points in both events in the same Olympics. His 710.91 points remain the most recorded in the Olympic platform competition since the advent of the current scoring system, and his victory in the springboard was the most lopsided in the history of the Games. That dominance also earned for Louganis the Sullivan Award, which annually goes to America's best amateur athlete. His encore performance four years later in Seoul did not come as easily. Leading going into the ninth round of the preliminaries of the springboard, he attempted a reverse 2½ somersault pike. Without a strong enough jump, he hit his head on the board and fell clumsily into the water.

After taking temporary sutures to sew up a scalp wound, he came back 35 minutes later to resume diving. After finishing qualifying, he went to a hospital, where the sutures were replaced by five mattress stitches. The next day, he hit all 11 dives and won easily. A week later, in the finals of the platform competition, Louganis trailed 14-year-old Xiong Ni of China by three points going into the last round. With a reverse 3½ somersault facing him, Louganis nailed that most difficult dive in his program and won the gold medal by 1.14 points. He became only the second athlete to win double diving golds in two Olympics (McCormick did it in 1952 and 1956). After announcing his retirement from competition in 1989, Louganis became a stage actor. Two of his most noteworthy roles were as a chorus boy who dies of AIDS in the 1993 off-Broadway production of "Jeffrey," and in 1995 in "The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me ...", a one-man comedy about the family life of a gay man.

In 1994, Louganis came out and declared his homosexuality during a videotaped message to athletes competing at Gay Games IV in New York. Still living in Southern California, Louganis spends much of his time speaking to youth groups about drug and alcohol rehabilitation and working on behalf of organizations helping the dyslexic. About his athletic achievements, 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." Olympian Greg Louganis: 'I never thought I'd see 30' Print Olympian Greg Louganis: 'I never thought I'd see 30' In the 1988 Seoul summer Olympics, American diver Greg Louganis was at the peak of his discipline. And then he faded from sight. Michael Idato reddit More In the 1988 Seoul summer Olympics, American diver Greg Louganis won gold medals on the springboard and platform, replicating his double gold win four years earlier in Los Angeles.

He was a man at the peak of his discipline and poised to take the sporting world, and the sponsorship economy, by storm. And then he faded from sight. Some elements of his life story – his sexuality, his HIV diagnosis – found their way to the headlines over the years, but in approaching the HBO documentary Back On Board, filmmakers Cheryl Furjanic and Will Sweeney began with some simple question: what happened to Greg Louganis after the 1988 Olympic games? SHARE Pin to Pinterest PIN Link Greg Louganis: Able at last to look back on his diving career with a little less of a critical eye. Photo: Supplied The commercialisation of Olympic athletes had begun in the early 1970s, with American swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Then came Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner, who won the 1976 Olympics decathlon title at Montreal. And in 1984, gymnast Mary Lou Retton won gold, silver and bronze in LA. All became high-profile commercial properties, but Louganis did not.

In a less enlightened age, Louganis' sexuality, and his HIV diagnosis, would effectively deplete his commercial value to America's sporting hero economy. SHARE Louganis won Olympic gold medals on the springboard and platform in both 1984 and 1988. Photo: Supplied "When I was in the sport, it was for the love of the sport and that pride and accomplishing an achievement, so I wasn't in it for the money, you know, so to speak," Louganis says. But it's hard not to hear a twang of regret in his voice, a sense that he was denied what so many of his equals were given, almost without asking. Back On Board is a profoundly personal documentary, as much about Louganis's life after sport, as it is a document which assembles a snapshot of his sporting achievements. His life in the present is blended with archival footage of the younger man, whose acute shyness, perhaps not evident then, seems plain for all to see.

Advertisement It is also filled with intimate moments, such as Louganis' discovery that his father – with whom he did not have a good relationship – had kept every score of his competitions, including all of his Olympic games. "I was just blown away because I didn't always have a great relationship with him, you know, we had some difficult times," Louganis says. "But I'm grateful that we were able to come full circle. I took care of him the last six weeks of his life [Peter Louganis died in 1991] and we really made peace with each other. I realised he did the best he could at that moment in time with the tools he had. And he loved me and I loved him." Reflecting on his teenage years, Louganis has mixed emotions. It was a childhood driven by sport, and his emergence as a potentially brilliant diver. It was also tinged with the difficulties of growing up and concealing his sexuality. Keeping his sanity, he says, were several close girlfriends on the school gymnastic team. "Those gals kept me alive, they actually did," he says. "I did try to kill myself. I tried to commit suicide.

But those girls gave me a purpose and, you know, we had a lot of successes and we also had a lot of fun along the way." The documentary also touches on the 1980 and 1984 Olympic boytcotts boycott, a subject which was controversial at the time as it effectively forced amateur athletes to become a wedge in a political conflict between the east and the west, or more tangibly, the United States and its cold war rival Russia. The topic still a sensitive one. "My feeling are really very mixed," Louganis says. "I'm angry for my fellow teammates of the 1980 Olympic team because they did not have that opportunity to shine. "If you think of an elite athlete, especially, competing on that level, an elite athlete has a shelf life," he adds. "If you go beyond that shelf life, then you miss that opportunity. And a lot of those athletes missed that opportunity. And so for them, I'm angry for them." In the wake of his Olympic success, and his subsequent retirement from competitive diving, Louganis says he was to some extent caught between a paradigm shift in the treatment of HIV.

"I was diagnosed with HIV six months prior to the Olympic games in 1988, so I, honestly, I knew those were my last competitive dives because we still viewed HIV/AIDS as a death sentence, and I never thought I'd see 30," he says. "And then 30 goes by. And then 40 goes by." He pauses. "I'm 55. "So then I'm like going, oh, shit, I got to get a job, what am I going to do?" he adds. "I don't plan too far ahead because my husband is always encouraging me to do what's in front of me to the best of my ability. And, you know, that's how I make it through my day, and there's lots of things happening." Though he paid a big commercial price – when his HIV status was revealed in 1995, he lost all of his sponsors, except the swimsuit company Speedo, which stood by him – Louganis seems at peace in his life. Perhaps for the first time. He has returned to USA Diving as a mentor, and he is planning to attend the Olympic games in Rio as a commentator.

And for the first time, he says, he can look back at footage of his own diving career without the harshly critical lens he applied during his diving career. "I can appreciate that footage now," he says. "When I was competing, I would always see a finger out of place or my arm a little bit higher or I could have jumped a little higher or my toe point wasn't exactly right. I was very, very critical. But now I can sit back and watch it and really appreciate it, and I think get a sense of what other people saw." WHAT Back on Board WHEN Showcase, Sunday, March 6, 8.30pm Greg Louganis Bio, Stats, and Results | Olympics at Sports-Reference.com Medals: 4 Gold, 1 Silver (5 Total) Biography American Greg Louganis is considered the greatest diver of all time. After winning Olympic silver in the platform in 1976 as a 16-year-old, he missed the 1980 Games because of the United States’ boycott but returned to take the springboard-platform double in both 1984 and 1988.

His 1988 springboard victory was the stuff of high drama, when he qualified despite striking the board with his head on the next-to-last qualifying dive. Louganis also won both titles at the World Championships of 1982 and 1986, having earlier won the platform in 1978. It is highly probably that the 1980 boycott prevented Louganis from winning the diving double at three consecutive Olympics, an unprecedented feat. He won both springboard and platform at the 1979 Pan-American Games and repeated that feat at the 1982 and 1986 World Championships. He won over 30 national championships, more than any other American, and numerous international titles, but it is the manner in which he won that stunned the fans and impressed the judges. At the 1982 Worlds, performing an inward 2½ pike, he became the first diver in international competition to be awarded a perfect 10 from all seven judges. Later in that competition, his front 3½ pike received the highest score ever awarded a single dive with 92.07 points.

He performed these feats by combining great athletic ability with unusual grace honed by many years of classical dance training. Of Samoan and European descent, he studied classical dance for many years and this training provided the basis for the elegance and artistry of his performances. His superiority over his contemporaries was considerable and he held many records for the highest marks ever achieved in competition. Sadly, in the early 1990s, Louganis announced that he was HIV-positive, and had actually been so at the time of the 1988 Olympics when he struck his head on the springboard. He now is known as a breeder of Parson Russell Terriers, especially those used in agility training.

Results 50 stunning Olympic moments No20: Greg Louganis's perfect dive 1988 | Simon Burnton | Sport | The Guardian 50 stunning Olympic moments No20: Greg Louganis's perfect dive 1988 How the scared boy with a phobia overcame his fears and became a world beater Wednesday 28 March 2012 04.00 EDT First published on Wednesday 28 March 2012 04.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close The three-and-a-half reverse somersault with tuck – officially known as dive 307C – is one of the most difficult in the sport. It was added to the table of dives in September 1982, and Greg Louganis started working on it immediately. Initially he stayed on the ground, using a spotting belt – a device used to help gymnasts practise particularly complicated dismounts – until he had perfected the action. When it was time for him to first attempt the dive for real, Louganis climbed up to the platform, 10m – a little higher than two double decker buses – above his practice pool, and froze.

Ten to watch: meet Team GB's sporting superheroes Read more “He wouldn’t go,” his coach, Ron O’Brien, said. “He’d stand on the end of the platform and stand and stand, and step back. I told him he just had to learn that dive, that he could bring his lunch and dinner the next day, because he was going to stay up there till he did do it.” Louganis conquered his fear, as he had conquered fear before. “When I first started coaching him, he wasn’t a real happy kid,” said O’Brien. “He was always a brave, strong diver, but he was a scared kid. Scared of so darn many things.” “The thing about fear is that sooner or later you have to face it down,” said Louganis. As a child he developed ophiophobia, a fear of snakes. Many people are similarly afflicted, but few react how Louganis did: he saved up and bought one. “A boa constrictor,” he said. “Not too big, but a serious snake.” He fed his snake dead chicks every day until he was cured.

In 1983 Louganis went to the World University Games in Edmonton as one of the few men in world diving able to execute the 307C. The only other one present was the Soviet Sergei Chalibashvili, and coincidentally the American ended up preparing to climb the ladder and execute the dive immediately after his rival. He was on the steps as Chalibashvili launched himself into the air and started to spin, but deliberately chose not to watch. It was just as well: Chalibashvili had not given himself enough room. He hit the concrete platform with his head, shattering his skull. He never regained consciousness. “I knew something terrible happened when I felt the tower shake,” he said later. “I heard screaming. I ran to the edge of the [practice] platform and saw a lot of blood in the pool. I wanted to jump in after him, but people were yelling, ‘Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!’ I couldn’t watch any more.” How times have changed over the past 30 years.

When the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed in the middle of a match against Tottenham a fortnight ago, his life in grave danger, the match was quite properly abandoned. In Edmonton in 1983, less than half an hour after Chalibashvili was dragged from the pool, Louganis was looking down from the platform at the bloodied water below and preparing to attempt the very same dive (after that day the 307C became known as the Dive of Death, and was also responsible for that decade’s only other diving fatality). His mind flashed back to the moment he had experienced something similar in a competition in Tbilisi in 1979, where he was saved only by the fact that the platform had been constructed out of plywood rather than concrete. He was unconscious for 20 minutes, but recovered. “It’s always there in the back of your mind, but you have to be brave, confident,” he said. “You have to block it out.” Louganis executed his dive perfectly. In 1984, as Louganis won two gold medals at a canter, the Guardian called him “Mr Perfect”.

It isn’t a description that a young Gregory Efthimios Louganis could ever have imagined being used on him. His parents, a Samoan father and a Swedish mother, were both 15 when he was born, and gave him up for adoption when he was eight months old. As a young child he suffered badly from asthma, and had a string of allergies – pollen, animal fur, various foods. He was an undiagnosed dyslexic – his school tested him for mental impairment – and had a stutter. They certainly did not call him Mr Perfect at school, where he was more likely to be called “sissy”, “retard” or, on account of the dark complexion he inherited from his father, “nigger”. “I got beat up at the bus stop a lot,” he said. He started smoking aged nine, and drinking soon after. As a teenager he suffered from depression, and there were three suicide attempts. Though his relationship with his adoptive father, who ran a tuna fishing fleet, wasn’t easy – “He had nothing to do with Greg until he started winning first place,” said his mother, Frances – Louganis found happiness in his mother’s kitchen, and most of all in dance.

When a doctor recommended that the 18-month-old Louganis exercise regularly to build up his asthma-addled lungs, he was taken to his sister’s tap class; by the age of three and a half he was performing solo routines. He excelled at gymnastics, and discovered a particular talent for the trampoline. When the family moved to a new house with a swimming pool, it wasn’t long before Louganis started attempting to replicate his trampoline moves on the diving board. His terrified mother decided he had better get some lessons. He was eight years old. “I didn’t speak much as a kid, because everybody laughed at me,” Louganis said. “It was so frustrating. At home I would start a sentence and my sister would finish it. She wasn’t with me at school, so I just shut up. I decided to direct all my time and energy into something I could be proficient in. I wanted to show people I could do something. I liked to dance, tumble, do gymnastics and dive, so I totally homed in on my physical attributes.” At the age of nine, Louganis began to complain of pains in his legs.

Doctors diagnosed an issue with the way his knees were growing and warned him to stop practising gymnastics or risk permanent disability. He ignored them, but grew up with a slight bend in his legs. This was far from a disability, however: it created a gap through which he could see even when his head was tucked up against them, when most divers are effectively blinded by their bodies. This was to give him a unique competitive advantage. O’Brien first saw him when he was 10, and remembered a boy with “a different quality to his diving than I had seen with anyone else. He was stronger, and he had a presence about him.” At the Junior Olympics the following year he caught the eye of Dr Sammy Lee, an ENT specialist but more relevantly an Olympic diving gold medallist in 1948 and 1952. “The first time I saw him I knew he would be the greatest diver in history if he got the right coach,” said Lee. The pair met for the first time in 1975, when Lee offered to be that coach. Within weeks Gregory had moved in, and the pair started working full-time to prepare for the Montreal Olympics.

At the trials, Gregory came first on both springboard and platform. In Montreal, though, Louganis was struck by toothache. Distracted, he finished sixth in the springboard event and decided to seek help. Scared of failing a drugs test, he refused pain relief as the dentist took out his drill. The following day he won a silver medal. At the ceremony the Italian Klaus Dibiasi leant down at the 16-year-old from the gold medal platform and whispered: “In four years, you’ll be up here.” He would almost certainly have been right, but for the US team’s decision to boycott the 1980 games in Moscow. By then, Louganis was acknowledged as the best in the world. At the world championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1982 he became the first person in a major international meeting to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges. The next time he was beaten, in any competition, was in 1987.

At the 1984 Olympics he destroyed the field – his tally of 754.41 points in the springboard event was more than 100 better than his nearest rival. In the platform his total of 710.91 was the highest in the history of the sport, and nearly 70 points better than the silver medallist (to calm his nerves before his history-making final dive he listened to the music from Chariots of Fire on his Walkman, and talked at length with his closest friend, Gar – a teddy bear). Louganis was one of the most famous and celebrated men in America. “He used to be very introverted, he was in a lot of turmoil,” said O’Brien. “I’ve seen him grow to be a very relaxed, confident, comfortable person who can deal with media, speak in front of crowds and just be happy.” But there was still turmoil beneath the surface. By then Louganis was in an abusive relationship with his business manager, Jim Babbitt, who stole from him, beat him and, on at least one occasion, raped him at knifepoint. Babbitt died of Aids-related illness in 1990.

In 1988, six months before the Seoul Olympics, Louganis was himself tested, and discovered that he was HIV positive. His doctor – also his cousin – persuaded him not to give up on diving, and put him on the antiretroviral drug AZT, which he took every four hours round the clock. “Dealing with HIV was really difficult for me because I felt like, God, the US Olympic Committee needs to know this,” he said. “US Diving needs to know it because what if I get sick at the Olympic Games and am unable to compete?” But Louganis decided not to tell anyone outside his close circle. “We knew that the risk of his spreading the virus through an open cut was infinitesimal, and besides, how many times does a diver – much less Greg Louganis – get wounded?” said O’Brien. “We thought it best to keep his condition to ourselves.” In 18 years, Louganis had by conservative estimate launched himself off a springboard about 200,000 times without ever once injuring himself, and it was nearly a decade since his one and only misjudgment on the platform. It wasn’t much of a risk.

But everybody knows what happened next: in Seoul, after eight rounds of the springboard heats and with Louganis leading by eight points, he left the board too straight while attempting a reverse two and a half somersault in pike position and clattered his head as he straightened out. “I jumped off the board and heard this big clank,” he said later that day. “That’s my perception of the dive – I think my pride was hurt more than anything.” As far as the competition was concerned, Louganis could barely have picked a better time to make the mistake. His wipe-out dropped him to fifth with two rounds to go, and he needed only to finish in the top 12 to qualify for the final. But first the cut to his head needed to be dealt with. He agonised about whether to tell the team physician, Dr James Puffer, that he was HIV positive, and decided not to. “I was so stunned,” he said. “I mean, what was going on in my mind at the time was, ‘What’s my responsibility? Do I say something?’ This has been an incredibly guarded secret.” It was not until Puffer had finished that Louganis realised he had not been wearing gloves.

“I had 10 minutes to close the wound, at least so he’d be able to dive again,” Puffer said later. “Unfortunately there were no gloves. I made the decision I was going to close it without waiting, otherwise he might not have been able to go to the next round.” After Louganis made his condition public in 1995 Puffer tested negative for HIV. A patched-up Louganis finally emerged for his penultimate dive, a testing reverse somersault with three twists. The small crowd fell silent and watched. To the surprise of nobody who had followed his remarkable career, Louganis soared. His score of 87.12 points was the highest of any diver for any dive in the qualifying competition, and earned him a standing ovation. One more near-perfect dive saw him qualify in third place. The following morning, Louganis got to the venue early. “He was really down,” said O’Brien. “Usually when he comes in he’s in a pretty happy state of mind and he’s joking, but this time he was very quiet. I knew he had some question marks.” “I was very nervous,” Louganis said. “Hitting my head shook my confidence a lot.

That’s the reason I worked out this morning. I did quite a few dives, more than I normally do, just to get over my jitters.” But the competition, if not quite so straightforward as it had been in Los Angeles, was predictably serene. Louganis led after all but one (the fourth) of the 11 rounds, his nerves only apparent when he repeated the dive that had troubled him the previous day. “I was a little nervous going into the ninth,” he said. “I’m not going to deny that’s because of what happened. The fact everyone was watching me very closely made me a little nervous. I just kept telling myself: ‘Do it the way you’ve done it before. Just go for it.’ As was his habit, in the moments before diving Louganis sang to himself the song Believe in Yourself from The Wiz. This time the dive earned him 76.50 (despite getting it wrong in nearly every way possible he had got 6.30 points for the previous day’s effort) and extended his lead over China’s Tan Liangde. His final two dives approached perfection, and he won by a margin of 25 points.

The platform final was significantly less straightforward, as the brilliantly talented 14-year-old Chinese schoolboy Xiong Ni – who was to win three gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Games – created something of a sensation. Before the final round of dives Xiong led by three points, and he then produced an excellent effort which earned 82.56. Nothing less than perfection would save Louganis now, and that is exactly what he produced. His dive brought 86.70 points, and victory by a margin of 1.14. He retired that day, a hero. And the dive that sealed his golden success? The three and a half reverse somersault with tuck – officially known as dive 307C. Tom Daley leads Great Britain’s diving squad for 2016 Rio Olympics Read more Louganis, who had studied drama at college, went into acting with limited success. In 1993 he took the role of Darius, an HIV-positive dancer, in the off-Broadway drama Jeffrey, and in 1995 he came out publicly, in an emotional appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show.

That year he admitted on Barbara Walters’s TV programme that he was HIV positive. Despite some outrage – the chairman of the Seoul organising committee said in the light of his disclosure that Louganis’s participation was “really regrettable” and “not morally right” – reaction was mostly supportive. Speedo, one of his main sponsors, immediately extended his deal. “It’s been so difficult, with the secrets and asking people to keep those secrets,” he said. “The rest of my life is about not having secrets, and living my life openly and honestly.” He wasn’t the only one to express relief that the secret was out. “I’m glad that I can finally share the story of his heroism,” said O’Brien. “I never even told my wife. There are very few divers who could’ve come back from that springboard incident and won two gold medals. If that isn’t courage, I don’t know what is.” Louganis now lives in Malibu, and spends much of his free time indulging his love of dogs – he has discovered a gift for obedience and agility training. His house has a swimming pool, but there is no diving board. It is more than 15 years since he last attempted a dive.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he has said, “it’s just that diving’s not a sport you can do casually. It’s not like tennis or golf. If your timing is off, it can be really bad news. I have those memories of diving, those really incredible memories of diving. But that’s what they are, memories.” Greg Louganis, then - Famous American Olympic athletes: Where are they now? - Pictures - CBS News Famous American Olympic athletes: Where are they now? Next Memorable American Olympians The Rio Olympics will send a new generation of athletes into the record books and the headlines. Ever wonder what's become of some of the most memorable U.S. athletes from past Olympics? Check out what these Olympic stars have been up to since the days when they set records, defied expectations and changed the games forever. Pictured: Carl Lewis of Team USA flies through the air on his way to a gold medal in the long jump competition at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Credit: Getty Images Nancy Kerrigan, then Kerrigan won the bronze medal in figure skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics.

In 1994, Kerrigan was the victim of an attack later connected to associates of rival skater Tonya Harding. She was clubbed in the knee and had to miss the U.S. national championships, but still made the Olympic team. Kerrigan went on to win the silver medal that year. Credit: Pascal Rondeau/ALLSPORT via Getty Images Nancy Kerrigan, now Kerrigan has competed in Ice Wars, a team figure skating competition, and performed in ice shows. She has also appeared in the comedy Blades of Glory and worked as a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. Credit: Getty Images Tonya Harding, then Harding, the first woman to complete the notoriously difficult triple axel jump, finished fourth at the 1992 Olympics. She's best known for pleading guilty to knowledge of her husband and bodyguard's plan to break Kerrigan's leg to prevent her from competing in the Olympics. Credit: Vincent Amalvy/Getty Images Tonya Harding, now Banned for life from the U.S. Figure Skating Association after the 1994 Olympics, Harding was forced to pursue a different career: She was a professional boxer from 2002 to 2004.

Today, she's married and raising her first child. Credit: Al Bello, Getty Images Kerri Strug, then In 1996, a U.S. gymnastics team known as "the Magnificent Seven" stormed the games. Strug was a part of that team, and famously competed with an injured ankle. With encouragement from famed coach Béla Károlyi, Strug landed on both feet after performing a vault with that bad ankle. Though she immediately collapsed, her incredible performance helped win a gold medal for the women's gymnastics team. In this photo, Károlyi carries an injured Strug to the podium for the medal ceremony. Credit: IOP/AFP/Getty Images Kerri Strug, now Since her historic performance, Strug has worked as a staff assistant in the Presidential Student Correspondence office at the White House and covered gymnastics for Yahoo!. Today, she is married and lives in Arizona. Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Greg Louganis, then Louganis earned a spot in sports history when he won gold medals in springboard and platform diving competitions at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images Greg Louganis, now Louganis was diagnosed with HIV before the 1988 Olympics, but he didn't publicly discuss it until 1995. Since then, Louganis has vocally supported gay rights and HIV awareness. He also published a well-received autobiography, "Breaking the Surface." Credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images Tommie Smith, then Smith won the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics for the 200-meter dash. He's equally famous for his Black Power salute at the awards ceremony, joined by bronze medal winner John Carlos. Credit: Getty Images Tommie Smith, now Though Smith received death threats and was banned from the Olympics after his controversial gesture at the awards ceremony, the moment became a symbolic milestone in civil rights history. Since then, Smith has since worked as a track coach and a sociology professor. Smith (left) and Carlos (right) won the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the ESPYs in 2008. Credit: Kevin Winter, Getty Images Michelle Kwan, then This beloved figure skater won the silver medal at the 1998 Olympics and the bronze at the 2006 Olympics.

Credit: Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images Michelle Kwan, now Kwan never officially retired. Instead, she shifted focus toward her education, enrolling in an undergraduate program at the University of Denver and pursuing a masters in law and diplomacy at Tufts University. Today, Kwan works for the U.S. Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. Credit: Getty Images Carl Lewis, then He's one of the most famous Olympic track and field athletes ever, having set the records for the 100-meter and 200-meter sprinting events and the long jump. In total, Carl Lewis won nine gold medals between 1984 and 1996. Credit: Gray Mortimore/Getty Images Carl Lewis, now Lewis has been named World Athlete of the Century by the International Association of Athletics Federation and Sportsman of the Century by the International Olympic Committee. He has made movie and TV appearances and run for a a seat in the New Jersey Senate in 2011, though he was unsuccessful. Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images Jackie Joyner-Kersee, then Joyner-Kersee was voted the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century by Sports Illustrated for Women.

She's competed in four Olympics from 1984 to 1996, winning three gold medals, one silver and two bronze in the heptathlon and the long jump. Credit: Tony Duffy/Getty Images Jackie Joyner-Kersee, now Since her 1996 Olympic appearance, Joyner-Kersee played basketball for the Richmond Rage in the American Basketball League, a professional women's basketball league that went bankrupt in 1998. She also co-founded Athletes for Hope, a charity dedicated to connecting fellow athletes with needy non-profits. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images Muhammad Ali, then Three-time world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is considered one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. It was his victory in the 1960 Olympics in the heavyweight division that made 18-year-old, then known as Cassius Clay, an international star. Credit: AFP/Getty Images Muhammad Ali, 1942-2016 Ali spent the years after his retirement from the ring focusing on peace activism and humanitarian causes. After suffering from Parkinson's for many years, the beloved boxer passed away on June 3, 2016.

Credit: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Misty May-Treanor, then May-Treanor is one of the most successful beach volleyball players ever: Along with teammate Kerri Walsh Jennings, May-Treanor won Olympic gold medals in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Credit: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Misty May-Treanor, now After retiring in 2012, May-Treanor completed a graduate degree program in coaching. She's also working to get families to be more active with a video series called "Full-Life Hacks," as well as spending time with her daughter. Credit: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for USOC Michael Jordan, then With an incredible NBA career that spanned over fifteen seasons and two teams, Jordan is considered the best basketball player of all time. He won Olympic gold medals in 1984 and again in 1992, when he was part of the "Dream Team" that also included superstars Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen and David Robinson.

Credit: Karl Mathis/Getty Images Michael Jordan, now Since his retirement in 2003, Jordan bought a majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets. Thanks to endorsement deals and the success of Air Jordans, Jordan has achieved huge, lasting financial success. In 2015, Forbes calculated that Jordan is worth more than $1 billion. Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Lisa Leslie, then Leslie has won four Olympic gold medals playing for the U.S. women's basketball team in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. She played for the Los Angeles Sparks for 11 seasons. Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images Lisa Leslie, now Since retiring from professional basketball in 2009, Lisa Leslie was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Leslie also has pursued an acting career, appearing in the movie "Think Like A Man" and various TV shows. Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Mark Spitz, then Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1968 Olympics -- a record that stood for 40 years until Michael Phelps topped it with eight gold medals in 2008.

Spitz won two more golds at the 1972 Olympics and set world records in seven different swimming events. Credit: Tony Duffy, Getty Images Mark Spitz, now Spitz retired from competitive swimming in 1972, but attempted to make a comeback in 1992, though he failed to qualify for the Olympics. He appeared on a number of TV shows and covered the 1976 and 1984 Olympic games. Today, Spitz runs a real estate company in Beverly Hills. Credit: Kevin Lee, Getty Images for Laureus Michael Johnson, then The only male athlete to win the 200- and 400-meter dash competitions in the same Olympics, Michael Johnson is a record-breaking American sprinter. He has four Olympic gold medals. Credit: Simon Bruty, Getty Images Michael Johnson, now After the 2000 Olympics, Johnson worked as a BBC commentator and started his own sports management company, which manages other Olympic athletes. He also released a documentary called "Survival of the Fastest" about African-American runners.

Credit: Getty Images Bruce Jenner, then In 1976, Bruce Jenner was hailed as "the world's greatest athlete" after winning a gold medal in the Decathlon at the Olympics. The record-breaking performance made Jenner America's golden boy, famously appearing on the Wheaties cereal box. Credit: Tony Duffy, Getty Images Caitlyn Jenner, now In 2015, Jenner went public as transgender and changed her name to Caitlyn Jenner . She recently starred in a documentary series called "I Am Cait," after many years on the reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." Credit: Kevin Winter, Getty Images CBSNews.com Four-time Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis to mentor American divers FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Greg Louganis says he's ready to help U.S. divers regain the Olympic podium. Greg Louganis won two gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, bringing his total to four. AP Photo/Bob Galbraith The four-time Olympic gold medalist is making his debut as a mentor to up-and-coming Americans at this weekend's USA Diving Grand Prix at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center.

His involvement comes nearly 22 years after he defended his gold medals in three-meter springboard and 10-meter platform at the 1988 Seoul Games. "To be invited back to a mentoring program and to help bring back the fun into diving is great," Louganis said Friday. The U.S., a one-time diving superpower, didn't win any medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics or the 2008 Beijing Games. Laura Wilkinson was the last American medalist, winning platform gold at the 2000 Sydney Games. "It's time to get somebody on the podium, but in order to move in that direction we need to get everybody on board and into the right frame of mind and the right thinking," Louganis said. "It's not to focus on results, as you're not going to make huge leaps to a gold medal. "Now our goal is just to get somebody back on the podium," he said. Ron O'Brien, who coached Louganis when he was an Olympic champion, is thrilled that USA Diving is beginning to take advantage of Louganis' wealth of knowledge. "I was kind of sorry that didn't happen right after he retired," O'Brien said.

"He still has great name recognition and there's a lot of things he can do to promote the sport. "I'm sure he can teach those kids a lot of tricks of the trade," he said. Louganis announced he was HIV positive soon after winning his last gold medals and has spent much of the time since then as a dog trainer, author and actor. This week he's found that adding USA Diving mentor to his responsibilities is a bonus in an already full life. Initially, Louganis felt the young divers were intimidated by his legendary stature. But he said he was quickly able to dispel their nervousness around him. "The kids have been great," Louganis said. "A lot of what we've been talking about has been totally un-diving related. "I broke down those perceived barriers of intimidation towards me. I said, 'You know what, I'm just a guy,'" he said.

Louganis wins gold in springboard - Sep 19, 1988 - HISTORY.com Louganis wins gold in springboard Share this: Louganis wins gold in springboard Author Louganis wins gold in springboard URL Publisher A+E Networks On September 19, 1988, just one day after sustaining a head injury in a frightening accident, American diver Greg Louganis wins gold in the springboard competition at the Summer Olympics, in Seoul, South Korea. It was his second consecutive Olympic gold in the event. Four years earlier, at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Louganis had been unstoppable, winning gold decisively in both the springboard and platform competitions. By the time the 1988 Olympics rolled around, however, many in the diving world believed Louganis was past his prime. As if to prove his doubters wrong, Louganis got off to a strong start in Seoul, and led in the preliminaries of the springboard competition going into the ninth round on September 18.

For his ninth dive, Louganis attempted a reverse 2 1/2 somersault pike but failed to clear the board, and hit the back of his head on it as he fell into the water, his dive incomplete. To the delight and relief of his many fans, Louganis returned to make his final two dives after a quick trip to the trainer for five stitches to close the gash in his head, and secured his place in the final. Later, he said of the accident, “I didn’t realize I was that close to the board. When I hit it, it was kind of a shock. But I think my pride was hurt more than anything else.” The next morning, Louganis fought through his nerves to nail all 11 of his dives, proving that he was still the best diver in the world. Louganis also won repeat gold in the men’s platform competition, becoming the first man ever to win consecutive golds in both events. On October 2, Louganis was awarded the United States Olympic Committee Spirit Award and later announced his retirement from competition to pursue an acting career. In 1995, Louganis confirmed that he was suffering from the AIDS virus.

Related Videos Greg Louganis back in US diving fold for Olympics Greg Louganis back in US diving fold for Olympics BETH HARRIS Share View photos FILE - In this June 23, 2012, file photo, former U.S. Olympian Greg Louganis smiles as he talks with friends at the U.S. Olympic diving trials in Federal Way, Wash. As an athlete mentor at the London Olympics, Louganis is trying to make sure the stress of winning medals isn't heaped on the shoulders of American divers, who have been chasing his standard of excellence since he became the sport's icon in the 1980s. The U.S. has been blanked in diving in two consecutive Olympics, and hasn't won a gold since 2000. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File) More Greg Louganis knows what it's like to be perfect. And he's concerned that kind of pressure will be the undoing of a lot of athletes at the London Olympics.

He's trying to make sure the stress of winning medals isn't heaped on the shoulders of American divers, who have been chasing his standard of excellence since Louganis became the sport's icon in the 1980s. The U.S. has been blanked in diving in two consecutive Olympics, and hasn't won a gold since 2000. The man who won four Olympic gold medals and resembled a Greek god while spinning off the 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform is back in the fold at his first games with USA Diving working as an athlete mentor. "I'm hoping it's not too little, too late," Louganis said at last month's U.S. diving trials near Seattle. He came on board last year — late in the four-year Olympic cycle — after being invited by Steve Foley, an Australian who had taken over as USA Diving's high performance director from Ron O'Brien, Louganis' former coach. It marked a reunion between Louganis and the sport's U.S. governing body after years of separation, which he attributes to not being invited and not feeling welcome.

Louganis thinks it was made possible because he stopped coaching after briefly working with a diving club in Fullerton, Calif., last year. Not coaching meant he wasn't a threat to other coaches, who feared Louganis' reputation would lure their divers away. He thought doing both would be a conflict of interest. "I'm not coaching dives, I'm observing and making recommendations of what I see, of what they may be able to add to enhance their training programs," he said. More important to Louganis, and what he most enjoys, is being able to share his experiences, including successes and failures, with the current generation of U.S. divers. He will be in London during the games and afterward he'll attend a camp for young British divers. "I make myself available to kids to be able to talk about their home life, their school, their boyfriends, girlfriends, their potential professional life after diving, agents," he said. "I have those experiences that some of the other kids might be going through that I can share; it opens the door to say I'm a safe place because I've been there." Where he's been was about as low as a person can go.

Louganis revealed much of his personal turmoil in his 1995 autobiography, "Breaking the Surface." There was emotional abuse by his father, physical and sexual abuse by a partner, depression, addiction to alcohol and painkillers, and the most shocking details of all — he was gay and HIV positive, something he chose not to disclose to the U.S. Olympic Committee before the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was later harshly criticized for. "I've been to those dark places, but I came up on the other side," he said. "It gives an opportunity of realizing that there might be something else." Most of today's divers weren't born when Louganis was making history as the only male diver to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in both springboard and platform diving. "They know me from YouTube. They're impressed with that," he said, smiling. "Not that they read a whole lot, but you can read it in the record books." The topic most of them ask about is when Louganis hit his head on the springboard while leading the preliminaries in Seoul. Barely 30 minutes later, he returned to compete and notched the highest score ever in a qualifying round.

He went on to win the gold. "That baffled a lot of people," the 52-year-old former champion said. "It's something that they're very curious about." Among the current Olympians he's worked with are David Boudia, Nick McCrory and Troy Dumais, the only American man besides Louganis to make four Olympic diving teams. "I love him," Louganis said of Dumais, who often quoted his mentor's advice during the U.S. trials. "Even Greg Louganis said put your best dive last," Dumais said in switching the order of his list. Louganis' Olympic success set the bar so high that no one has yet equaled it. But he says today's divers are better than he was. "They're doing a higher degree of difficulty, they're getting higher scores," he said. Synchronized diving has been added to the Olympic program since Louganis retired, creating four more events. "That would have been a blast," he said. "I would have loved that." Louganis describes his mentoring work as a "crash course" in trying to tweak the mindsets of U.S. divers who might be obsessed with perfection. "It's not perfection that wins a medal.

It's generally who makes the fewest mistakes," he said. And if he can move the USOC's focus even slightly away from winning the medal count, then Louganis will feel better. "That is not where the heads of the athlete need to be," he said. "Unless you perform, the medals aren't going to come. The thing that I'm most concerned about is the aftercare." He cites the suicide of freestyle skier Jeret "Speedy" Peterson last July and the death of former Olympic champion diver Mark Lenzi this year as examples of athletes who could have used help transitioning to the real world after retirement. "It's a little unnerving because the USOC is so focused on the Olympians, and there's a lot of kids who don't quite make it as an Olympian and they're going through a lot of the same things," he said. Louganis also works with the U.S. Olympians Association, a support network for former Olympic athletes. In his new roles, he feels relaxed and empowered because he's doing it his way. "If I see something that's not quite right I'll call it out. People are going to get (angry) at me and that's OK," he said.

"I got so much (grief) for coming out from USA Diving, but on the flip side of that, I've been getting notes from kids who are saying, 'You saved my life.'" Louganis said his pull-no-punches approach seems to be working with the powers that be. "I think they're receptive to it because I don't think they're accustomed to straight talk," he said. "It's like, 'Wow.' I know it's right in my heart, whether it's politically correct, I really don't care. Right is right." Reblog After Olympics, Greg Louganis champions others | ShareAmerica Jul 22, 2016 698 U.S. diving great Greg Louganis is returning to the Olympics some 30 years after he won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 games on the springboard and the platform. The 56-year-old is heading to Rio as an official mentor for the U.S. diving team. Unofficially, he’ll continue to serve as an inspiration for others.

Louganis wants to transform Olympic pressure into something positive for young divers after surviving his heart-stopping injury and triumph in the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. During those games, Louganis struck his head on the springboard while doing a reverse somersaulting dive. He returned to the board shortly after to perform a more difficult reverse somersaulting dive. He nailed it, earning the highest score of any in the event. “I’m pretty proud of that,” said Louganis, who went on to win his third and fourth gold medals. LEFT: Louganis strikes his head on the springboard in the 1988 Olympic Games. RIGHT: The next day, his bandaged wound can be seen as he completes a gold-winning dive. (© AP Images) What many people didn’t know was that six months before the Olympics, Louganis discovered he had HIV, a diagnosis most considered a death sentence in the 1980s. At the time he was 28 years old, and he didn’t expect to live past 30.

Because of the stigma surrounding the disease, Louganis felt that he couldn’t fully reveal himself, as a gay man and HIV-positive, until 1995. “When you talk to the athletes, sexual identity, they don’t care,” Louganis said. “I think a lot of athletes are just so focused — I was — on sport, those kinds of issues aren’t in the forefront.” Louganis performs a winning dive during the U.S. Diving Indoor Championships in 1986. (© AP Images) Around the world, almost 40 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS, and people fighting the disease have to, like Louganis, take a combination of medicines every day. Although treatment has improved since the 1980s, research continues to find better alternatives. Louganis has become an outspoken advocate for people with HIV with the Human Rights Campaign , and in a sign of changing attitudes, traveled with his husband to the first LGBTQI sports festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2012. Mentoring the next generation of divers Louganis was lured out of retirement in California to mentor the U.S.

diving team for the 2012 Olympics and is eager to serve that role again in Rio. Four-time Olympic champion Louganis is today a diving coach and motivational speaker. (© AP Images) The Olympics are an emotional event and can be difficult for even the most skilled athletes, Louganis said. “When you go into that venue, you can feel that energy. If you interpret that energy as pressure, you’re more likely to implode. But if you interpret it as inspiration, that’s the key. And inspiration can come from an unlikely place, Louganis said, even from the person who you think is your toughest competitor. “They want to beat you at your best, because you want to beat them at their best,” he said. “So really, everybody’s in your corner.” You can follow Greg Louganis in Rio on Twitter @greglouganis , and your favorite diving teams from August 7 to 20. TAGS

Question: American Greg Louganis twice won Olympic gold at which sport?
Answer: Diving