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'Gregory ("Greg") Efthimios Louganis' (born January 29, 1960 in El Cajon, California) is an American diver.
Athlete best known for winning back-to-back Olympic titles in both the 3m and 10m diving events. He received the James E. Sullivan Award in 1984 as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Contents

Diving career

Olympic Games

Post-diving and Writing Career

External links

Diving career

Louganis is of Samoan/Swedish descent and was raised in California by his adoptive parents, a Greek-American couple. At age 16, he took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis went on to win his first world title in the same event.
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. He is widely regarded as the greatest Olympic diver of all time.

Olympic Games

Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. But an American boycott of the games, instituted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in protest of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, prevented him from participating.
Louganis won two world titles in 1982, and in the Games in Los Angeles, 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. In what is considered one of the greatest feats in sporting history, Louganis suffered an injury during one dive attempt, then went on to score a perfect dive the second time, enough to earn him the gold medal. In one of his jumps in the springboard event, Louganis hit the diving board with his head while attempting a reverse 2 1/2 pike, but the resulting injury did not prevent him from going on to win the gold medal. His incredible comeback earned him as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year for 1988.

Post-diving and Writing Career

Louganis posed nude for ''Playgirl'' magazine in 1987.
In 1994, Louganis announced he was gay and went on to do a performance in the Gay Games.
In 1995, Louganis's autobiography co-written with Eric Marcus, entitled ''Breaking the Surface'', was published. Louganis revealed publicly the physical abuse he suffered from a live-in lover and that he was HIV-positive. The announcement caused some controversy because many felt he should have informed the treating doctors and those who used the pool of his HIV status following his injury, which caused light bleeding, in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. However, those using the pool following the injury were never in danger of infection.
Following the announcement of his HIV status, Louganis was dropped by most of his corporate sponsors, with the exception of Speedo, which continues to sponsor him to this day.
A 1997 made-for-television movie, ''Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story'', based on the book, starring Mario López as Louganis.
In 1999, Louganis' second book, ''For the Life of Your Dog'' (co-authored by Betsy Sikora Siino) was published.
Since retiring from competitive diving, Louganis has done some acting, most notably appearing in an off-Broadway production of the Paul Rudnick play ''Jeffrey''. He is also the former boyfriend of former E! television personality Steve Kmetko.

External links

★ Greg Louganis official web site.

★ Greg Louganis biography at U.S. Olympic Committee official web site.

★ Greg Louganis to keynote DBSA 2007 National Conference.