Greg Louganis
An Olympic diver who later used his visibility to challenge stigma around sexuality and HIV.
Greg Louganis was born in San Diego in 1960. Adopted as a baby, he found confidence in dance, acrobatics and diving after a childhood marked by bullying and difficulties at school.
At sixteen he won silver at the 1976 Olympics. In Los Angeles in 1984 he won both the springboard and platform titles, then repeated the double in Seoul in 1988. During the Seoul preliminaries he struck his head on the springboard and needed stitches, yet returned to complete the competition.
Louganis had learned earlier that year that he was HIV-positive, a fact he kept private while competing. He came out publicly as gay in 1994 and disclosed his HIV status in 1995, when his memoir “Breaking the Surface”, written with Eric Marcus, also appeared. The disclosure brought support but also criticism and revived scrutiny of the Seoul accident.
He went on to advocate for people living with HIV and for LGBTQ athletes. In 2016 he appeared on a Wheaties box, receiving a familiar symbol of American sporting recognition decades after his Olympic victories. His later public work made the pressures behind those achievements more visible.