|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
  |
|
 |
| |
|
| |
Greg Louganis (1960-?), American diver,
who won gold medals in both springboard and platform diving
at the Olympic Games in 1984 and 1988. Louganis, who desired
not only to win but also to achieve artistic perfection, dominated
men's diving in the 1980s. Adopted in infancy by a couple from
San Diego, California, Gregory Efthimios Louganis graduated
from the University of California at Irvine in 1983. A reading
disability affected his early schooling and made him painfully
shy, but as a child he excelled in dance classes. He soon began
gymnastics to relieve an asthma condition, then started diving
competitively. At the age of 11 he scored a perfect mark of
ten in the Junior Olympics diving competition in Colorado Springs,
Colorado.
At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Louganis won
a silver medal in platform diving. In spite of serious injuries
and a bout with mononucleosis, he won the 1978 United States
indoor national titles in springboard and platform diving. He
did not compete at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow because the United
States boycotted the games in protest over the invasion of Afghanistan
by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Four years
later, however, he won gold medals in both springboard and platform
diving at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. For his accomplishments
that year, Louganis won the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award,
given annually by the AAU to the outstanding amateur athlete
in the country. Louganis was inducted into the U.S. Olympic
Hall of Fame in 1985. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea,
he successfully defended his springboard and platform titles,
becoming the first man to win both titles in successive Olympics.
Louganis's many other victories during his career included the
springboard and platform titles at the Pan American Games in
1979, 1983, and 1987, the platform title at the world championships
in 1978, and the springboard and platform titles at the world
championships in 1982 and 1986. After the 1988 Olympics Louganis
retired from diving to pursue an acting career. In 1993 he appeared
in the Broadway play Jeffrey. Two years later his memoir Breaking
the Surface was published, and in it he revealed that he suffered
from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
