Грегори Луганис: Легенда олимпийских прыжков в воду

American Olympic springboard and platform diver

Gregory Efthimios Louganis (/l//uː/'/g//eɪ//n//ɪ//s/; born January 29, 1960) is an American Olympic diver who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 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" and "probably the greatest diver in history".

Louganis was born in El Cajon, California, and is of Samoan and Swedish descent. His teenage biological parents placed him for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by his adoptive parents, Frances and Peter Louganis. His adoptive father was of Greek descent. 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. 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. He attended Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, Valhalla High School in El Cajon, and Mission Viejo High School in Mission Viejo. In 1978, he subsequently attended the University of Miami, where he majored in drama and continued diving. In 1981, he transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a major in theater and a minor in dance in 1983.

As a Junior Olympic competitor, Louganis caught the eye of Dr. Sammy Lee, two time Olympic champion, who began coaching him. At sixteen, Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legend Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coach Ron O'Brien. Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but an American boycott of the games prevented him from participating. He was one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal years later. 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. 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. 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 the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' Dr. Anthony Fauci at the time. 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 notably Mary Lou Retton. In 2016, Louganis was pictured on boxes of Wheaties cereal, where prominent American athletes are famously featured, as part of a special "Legends" series that also included 1980s Olympians Janet Evans and Edwin Moses.

In November 2010, Louganis began coaching divers of a wide range of ages and abilities in the SoCal Divers Club in Fullerton, California. He was a mentor to the US diving team at the London 2012 Olympics and the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics.

Louganis had been a theater major in college, and in the late 1980s and 1990s, he appeared in a number of movies, including Touch Me in 1997. In 1993, he played the role of Darius in an Off Broadway production of the play Jeffrey. In 1995, he starred for six weeks in the Off Broadway production of Dan 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. In 2008, he appeared in the film Watercolors, 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 of IFC's comedy series Portlandia, playing himself.

In September 2000, Louganis appeared on Hollywood Squares as a member of famous Olympic gold medalists "Dream Team," competing in a special week of the game show series broadcast as a tribute to the 2000 Summer Games. The episodes marked the first time that all these champions came together for this kind of television competition. In 2013, Louganis was Dive Master in the celebrity diving show Splash on ABC, and a diving judge on Celebrity Splash! on Channel 7 in Australia. In 2020, he was a diving judge on the second season of the ABC show Holey Moley.

In 1996, Louganis recounted his story in a bestselling autobiography, Breaking the Surface, co written with Eric 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.

After retiring from diving, Louganis began to compete in dog agility competitions; he has said that being around the dogs gave him "a sense of security, company and unconditional love".

Louganis is a gay rights activist, as well as an HIV awareness advocate. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign to defend the civil liberties of the LGBT community and people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. In the October/November 2010 issue of ABILITY 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." Louganis is on the board of directors to the USA based chapter of the charitable foundation of Princess Charlene of Monaco. In 2023, it was reported that Louganis is auctioning three of his five Olympic medals in an effort to fund the Damien 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."

From 1983 to 1989, Louganis was in a romantic relationship 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 knifepoint. Louganis also accused Babbitt of taking 80% of his earnings. Six months before the 1988 Olympics, Louganis was diagnosed with HIV; he had contracted the virus from Babbitt. Even before then, he led what has been described as "an openly gay life". The two were married on October 12, 2013. On June 18, 2021, Louganis announced on Instagram that he and Chaillot were ending their marriage.

Louganis's 1984 and 1988 Olympic victories were covered in Bud Greenspan's documentaries about the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, both titled 16 Days of Glory. Louganis's memoir Breaking the Surface was adapted as the 1997 USA Network TV movie Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story with Mario Lopez playing the lead and Louganis narrating. In the first episode of the TV series Jackass, Johnny Knoxville calls himself "Greg Pooganis" as he puts on swimming gear to prepare for his Poo Cocktail stunt. In the third episode of season 3 of the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, after Lois Lane, while in a trance, jumps out of a helicopter, Jimmy Olsen says to her "Lois you looked like Greg Louganis, whooshed right out the door." In the 2005 film The Longest Yard, the character Caretaker responds to the argument that Crewe is a "natural athlete", saying, "So is Greg Louganis, but I bet you he'd get his ass whupped out here." Actor Michael Fassbender took Louganis's gait and mannerisms as inspiration for his portrayal of an advanced humanoid robot in the 2012 film Prometheus, 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." In the first episode of season 3 of the TV series Castle, the medical examiner describes a victim who had fallen from a window as having done "a Greg Louganis out that window up there." Louganis was the subject of the documentary Back on Board which aired on HBO on August 4, 2015. He was the subject of a short documentary, Thicker than Water, which appeared on the ESPN. com website as part of their 30 for 30 Shorts series on December 1, 2015. The documentary covered Louganis's ordeal, and ultimate triumph, at the 1988 Olympics. In the twelfth episode of season six of the TV series Billions, billionaire character Mike Prince says "I'm about as far aboveboard as Greg Louganis in his prime."

In 1984, Louganis received the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States. In 1988, he was awarded "Athlete of the Year" by ABC's Wide World of Sports. In 1989, he was nominated for "Best Male Athlete" by the Kids' Choice Awards. In 1991, Greg was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame. In June 2013, Louganis was inducted into the California Sports Hall of Fame. He was among the first class of inductees into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame on August 2, 2013. In April 2015, Louganis was presented the Bonham Centre Award from The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for his contributions to the advancement and education of issues around sexual identification. In July 2015, he was a torch bearer for the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles. In January 2017, he was a Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California.