Greg Louganis

Greg Louganis is considered to be one of the world’s best divers. He’s a five-time World Champion and five-time Fina World Cup Champion. He is the winner of 47 national championship titles and was the first man to win two gold medals in diving at two Olympic Games in a row. He started competing in diving at age 9, and by the time he was 16, in he'd won his first Olympic medal, a silver medal in 1976. He then prepared for the 1980 Olympic team but was unable to compete due to a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. Greg had a record-setting performance in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, garnering two golds and becoming the first diver in Olympic history to break the 700-point barrier on Men’s Platform. Never one to give up, even in the face of adversity, Greg pulled off one of the most publicized moments in sports history. After hitting his head on the board in the prelims, he came back to win the 3-meter finals as if the accident never happened. Competing with divers half his age on platform, he pulled out an incredible final dive to win two golds in 1988, becoming the first man in the history of the sport to win two back-to-back gold medals in two consecutive Olympic Games. Greg was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1988 and revealed his HIV status in his 1995 autobiography, Breaking the Surface, which spent five weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Greg’s second book, For the Life of Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Having a Dog From Adoption and Birth Through Sickness and Health, was published in 1999. Greg was born and raised in California and still resides there.