From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis Personal information Full name: Country Represented: Date of birth: Place of birth: Height: Event(s): Level: College team: Retired: Gregory Efthimios Louganis United States January 29, 1960 (1960-01-29) El Cajon, California 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) 1m, 3m, 10m Olympian University of Miami and University of California, Irvine yes
Olympic Games
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. Louganis won two world diving titles in 1982. In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events. After winning two more world championship titles in 1986, he repeated his 1984 feat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, although not without difficulties: he suffered a concussion after hitting his head on the springboard during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2 1/2 pike. He completed the preliminaries despite his injury, and went on to repeat the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal. His comeback earned him the title of ABC’s Wide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.
Gregory ("Greg") Efthimios Louganis (born January 29, 1960 in El Cajon, California) is an American Olympic diver who is best known for winning back-to-back Olympic titles in both the 3m and 10m diving events. He received the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in 1984 as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States. Louganis is of Samoan/Swedish descent and was raised in California by his adoptive parents, a GreekAmerican couple. At sixteen Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event. In 1978, he accepted a diving scholarship to the University of Miami where he studied theater, but in 1981 transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.
Personal life
Louganis is openly gay and tested positive for HIV in 1988.[1] In the years since his diagnosis was made public, Louganis has been an outspoken HIV awareness advocate. Greg currently competes actively in dog agility competitions with his dog Nipper.[2]
References
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External links
• Greg Louganis official web site • Greg Louganis Official Bio • Greg Louganis biography at U.S. Olympic Committee official web site • Greg Louganis to keynote DBSA 2007 National Conference • Greg Louganis • Sports Reference • Greg Louganis profile at NNDB
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Greg Louganis
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Louganis" Categories: 1960 births, American activists, American adoptees, American autobiographers, American divers, American information and reference writers, Divers at the 1976 Summer Olympics, Divers at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Divers at the 1988 Summer Olympics, James E. Sullivan Award recipients, Living people, Olympic divers of the United States, Olympic gold medalists for the United States, Olympic silver medalists for the United States, University of California, Irvine alumni, University of Miami alumni, Gay sportspeople, LGBT sportspeople from the United States, HIV-positive people This page was last modified on 24 May 2009, at 09:52 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) taxdeductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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