Wishing a happy 65th birthday to courageous and inspiring Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis!
With a lot of headlines being dominated by the actions and utterances of a lot of selfish, cruel and vile people these days, I need to shine some light on a heroic man: Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis.
Greg overcame great obstacles in his life to reach the top of his sport and remains an inspirational figure for so many. Greg won two gold medals in 1988, two in 1984 and a silver medal in 1976 while still in high school.
He is simply the best there’s ever been.
Greg’s story means so much to me because I was coming out in a big way in the mid-90s and it was then that he also came out publicly as a gay man and wrote a deeply-felt memoir called Breaking the Surface. In the book, Greg revealed that he had just found out that he was HIV positive when he won his third and fourth gold medals at the 1988 Olympics. He assumed he would not live much longer after that triumph.
Thankfully there were breakthrough medications introduced in the mid-90s and Greg has survived and thrived. In a 2010 interview, he told me that is no reason to not remain vigilant when it comes to prevention.
“I can’t stress it enough how important it is to be responsible,” he said. “It’s something that they can avoid! We’ve learned this through education and we’re trying to get that through to young people who think that they’re indestructible.”
“It’s really hard. A lot of it comes down to self-esteem and trying to build self-esteem in our youth and to get them to love themselves enough to protect themselves and those that they’re with.”
Although he did not come out publicly as a gay man until 1994, Greg was rumored to be gay and that hurt his commercial endorsement opportunities. But in recent years he seems to be getting more his due – especially since the airing of the Emmy-nominated documentary Greg Louganis: Back On Board.
In 2016, Louganis along with fellow Olympic legends Edwin Moses and Janet Evans received the long overdue honor of being placed on boxes of Wheaties breakfast cereal. The next year, he became the first openly gay man to ride as grand marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena.
He speaks so honestly and movingly about his life and his resilience is something I deeply respect and admire. It’s been such a joy to have been able to interview him on several occasions and to have been able to socialize a bit at various events over the years.
I wish him well always and a very happy birthday!
Comments
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VictorC says:
What a gracious man.
Wishing him a happy birthday.
I have met him one. I was living in Dallas during the 90s and he came to Cedar Springs-gay area of Dallas- bookstore Crossroads to sign copies of his book Breaking the Surface. There was a time limit of how long he would be signing. The line was at least 50 people deep. Greg had brought his mother to the signing and she could not believe all the folks waiting to meet him. Word spread that Greg would be there until the last person in line got to meet him. He was nice, sweet and a gentleman with all the fuss. I still have that book.