Greg Louganis is a famous and successful athlete, having been awarded several medals in the Olympics as well other world championships. Of Greek-American descent, Louganis was raised in California and managed to become recognized worldwide thanks to his success in the 1980s as a professional diver.
More specifically, he has won four Olympic gold medals but none since 2000. He has now returned to the Games as a mentor, giving recommendations to the athletes. “I’m not coaching dives, I’m observing and making recommendations of what I see, of how they may be able to enhance their training programs,” he told to the Independent newspaper.
But Louganis’ personal life is not typical for such a distinguished champion. After publishing his autobiography Breaking the Surface in 1995, American society felt shocked by his personal experience. Emotional abuse by his father, physical and sexual abuse by a partner, depression, addiction to alcohol and painkillers and the most shocking- Louganis was a homosexual and HIV positive.
The US Olympic Committee harshly criticized his decision not to inform them about his medical condition. But this belongs to distant past now for the Greek-American diver who insists that he has now come up on the other side.
“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,” reports the editor while Greg Louganis admits current athletes “are tackling a higher degree of difficulty, and they’re getting higher scores.”
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