One of the first things you realize about Greg Louganis, the first diver to be enshrined into the Breitbard Hall of Fame, is that while he understands there are at least two ways to react to anything, his philosophy is to look at the positive side.
On everything.
–As a 16-year-old, during the Olympic Games in Montreal, the junior at Valhalla High in El Cajon was the object of derision and ridicule—from his own U.S.A. teammates.
–When in 1980, he went to Washington D.C. as an athletes’ representative to meet with President Jimmy Carter to try to do something other than boycott the Moscow Olympic Games, he and the other athletes were summarily rebuked.
–After he hit his head during the springboard prelims in the Seoul Olympics, he wondered if he even wanted to continue.
Louganis had ample opportunity to call it quits but preferred a positive response.
“I was like a deer caught in the headlights of a car in Montreal,” said Louganis, relaxing before his current passion of training his four dogs for agility and obedience competitions. “My teammates didn’t think I should be there, so I became great friends with the Russian divers.”
“I felt like a complete outsider but it was so incredible being there. The competition, though, was not that enjoyable.”
Louganis, who would go on to win double gold in platform and springboard at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 Games in Seoul, said he was under extreme pressure from his coach, Dr. Sammy Lee, to not only win the platform gold in Munich, but to prevent defending champion Klaus DiBiasi of Italy from breaking one of Lee’s records.
He and DiBiasi had a great competition but when Louganis had a minor flaw on his ninth dive, DiBiasi hit his and went on to capture the gold in front of Louganis, who rallied to hit his 10th and final dive to preserve the silver.
“But I felt like a loser,” said Louganis, “I thought I’d never make it in diving. People said I lacked the killer instinct.”
Two years later, he was the number one diver in the world but in 1980, the U.S. government was looking for a way to express its disapproval of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and boycotting the Moscow Olympics was considered. The athletes were supposedly given a chance to express themselves.
“What we suggested was a protest of refusing to participate in the opening and closing ceremonies and to kick butt in the competition,” he said. “We didn’t want to make it political, yet in the end, we were made out to be spoiled kids.”
But like in 1976, when not winning fueled his competitive fires to stay in the sport four more years, being denied what almost certainly would have been two gold medals in Moscow kept Louganis around for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“I just wanted to prove myself,” said Louganis, who was so far ahead that he didn’t even have to perform his final dive on the springboard to win the gold. “By then, though, my competition was no longer Russia, but the Chinese divers.
“I’d work hard in preparation and my goal was to break a score of 700, which back then was like a 4-minute mile in its day. When I did that, I really didn’t have time to enjoy it because I had to move right on to the platform.”
When he won there, and then set the record for the most titles at the nationals afterward, he announced his retirement.
But when Louganis spoke with Phil Boggs of U.S. Diving, he discovered that he was the only diver who could really push to get trust funds from the 1984 Olympics to help other U.S. divers, so he promptly unretired and the trust funds were issued.
“I decided to keep diving through the 1986 World Championships and when I won, I decided I might as well keep going through the 1988 Olympics,” he said.
It was in Seoul, during the springboard prelims, that he tried a reverse 2 ½ pike and hit his head on the board.
“Everyone (who knew diving) saw it coming,” said Louganis, who said he was more embarrassed than hurt when he went into the water. “It’s like a car accident, you know it’s going to happen and you can’t do anything about it.”
But he said while there would be more painful moments every time he hit the water with his head, what happened was also a mixed blessing.
“In that split second, I went from the favorite to the underdog and the crowd actually got behind me,” said Louganis, who slipped to third place and would have to get back on the board for the first of his final two dives—both reverses—within 20 minutes.
But he also had a big enough lead that he knew he was in the finals and said there was never any doubt after discussing it with Coach Ron O’Brien that he would do the dives the way he had practiced instead of getting cautious.
He also admits, however, that he was scared. Not only did he have to focus on his dives and put hitting the board behind him, but he had recently tested positive for HIV.
“That’s where my training with Dr. Lee came into play,” said Louganis. “I had hit my hands on the board in practice and he made me do the dive over and over until my hands were the size of boxing gloves. I knew then I could get through anything, even hitting my head.”
Louganis said it was not the first time he had hit the board, even the platform which is 100 percent unforgiving, but he’d never done it on such a big stage.
“When I got out of the water after hitting my head, I could hear the crowd chuckling,” he said. “That made me smile and I knew then they were behind me, that I was not alone. From then on, it was moment by moment.”
And that became the story of the 1988 Olympics, as he wrapped up his two gold-medal performances to become the only male to win four diving gold medals.
There would be tough times ahead but Louganis discovered he got the peace of mind he had sought for so long when he acknowledged he was gay and started to work on a highly successful book, “Breaking the Surface,” which he said has been more rewarding than any of his Olympic or World diving titles.
As a shy youngster who did not fully understand his inner feelings, he never fully appreciated the impact he had on those around him.
Stories are told that school bus drivers would show up early and watch as he practiced in the early morning hours at Valhalla and anyone who attended the San Diego Section championships the spring after his Olympic silver were treated to a diving exhibition in which he used the 3-meter board and dazzled all who watched.
Louganis, four time Olympic gold medalist, many-time World Champion (once with a score of perfect 10’s), 1984 Sullivan Award winner as the nation’s top amateur athlete – has come a long way to become a unanimous San Diego Breitbard Hall of Fame selection.
Posted on February 21, 2010 by Christian Deleon
