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OK, in the midst of all the awfulness that is taking our focus in the Gay News section, here is some encouraging news.
They are only 30 years late, but General Mills is finally putting the greatest Olympic diver on the Wheaties cereal box.
You can download the NPR radio interview with Greg here.
In a world where gay sports heroes are few, Greg Louganis is the real deal.
If you haven't seen Louganis dive, take a look at the video below. Although it is a clip from a do
entary on how the brain works, the section on Greg gives you several of his dives in slow motion.
"Perfection" is the word most often used to describe his style.
After Greg, diving has been dominated mostly by teenagers. Like with Women's Gymnastics, a small body is an advantage when you are required to soar though the air and keep perfect form. But Greg, on the other hand, is not a small person. With his Polynesian heritage he is carrying good sized arms, legs and torso. Yet, he brings everything together in perfect control. Watching him dive is like watching Baryshnikov dance - it is powerful, masculine, and graceful.
Greg was 16 at his first Olympics in 1976 in Montreal, and he won a silver medal in platform diving. Preparing for the Moscow 1980 Olympics he was in the prime of his diving career and the favorite for two gold medals. However, the USA boycotted those games so he lost the opportunity to compete. In the meantime at the world championships he became the first diver to earn perfect 10's from all seven judges in 1982. From that point on, he would never be beaten in a competition until 1987.
He was back to compete at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was no competition, though. His final score in the springboard event of 754.41 points was more than 100 better than his nearest rival. In the platform he was the first diver to score over 700 points. His total of 710.91 was nearly 70 points better than the silver medallist.
It looked like he was on his way to repeating this feat in Seoul in 1988, however in one of his preliminary springboard rounds he hit his head on the board and suffered a concussion. A half an hour later with stitches in his scalp, he completed the preliminaries with a variation on the same disastrous backwards dive - and earned the highest marks given in that event. He went on to earn the gold medal in springboard 25 points ahead of the nearest competition. The next week he took his second gold medal in the platform diving.
I was living in LA in 1984 and I remember that it was unspoken, but known in the gay community that Greg was one of us. By 1988 it was an open secret, not the least because his quite pushy boyfriend/manager had a habit of inserting himself into Greg's limelight. Greg discovered just before the 1988 Olympics that he was HIV positive. Throughout that competition he was on AZT every four hours.
He retired from the sport after the Olympics, dumped the skanky boyfriend, and focused on new pursuits, like acting. (I saw him on stage in the New York premiere of the play Jeffery, and as the prince in Cinderella in Long Beach.)
In 1995 he released his autobiography Breaking the Surface, where he publicly came out as both gay and HIV+. Several of his sponsors immediately dropped him - but not Speedo. They extended his contract - a relationship that continued until 2007.
Louganis has been an advocate on HIV issues and LGBT civil rights. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign.
It seems that the last few years have been pretty great. In 2012 he was asked to join the USA Diving team coaching staff for the London Olympics. (Shockingly, this is the first time anyone had asked for his help.) He was a judge on the diving reality show Spalsh. And, best of all, in 2013 he married his partner John Chaillot.
NPR contacted Tom Daley before they ran the Wheaties story, and Tom emailed them back:
They are only 30 years late, but General Mills is finally putting the greatest Olympic diver on the Wheaties cereal box.
Better Late Than Never: Olympic Champion Greg Louganis Gets His Wheaties Box
Wheaties announced that Louganis — who is openly gay and HIV-positive — along with two other former Olympians... will be featured on the cereal boxes as part of the revamped "legends" series.
In a 2015 HBO do
You can download the NPR radio interview with Greg here.
In a world where gay sports heroes are few, Greg Louganis is the real deal.
If you haven't seen Louganis dive, take a look at the video below. Although it is a clip from a do
entary on how the brain works, the section on Greg gives you several of his dives in slow motion. "Perfection" is the word most often used to describe his style.
After Greg, diving has been dominated mostly by teenagers. Like with Women's Gymnastics, a small body is an advantage when you are required to soar though the air and keep perfect form. But Greg, on the other hand, is not a small person. With his Polynesian heritage he is carrying good sized arms, legs and torso. Yet, he brings everything together in perfect control. Watching him dive is like watching Baryshnikov dance - it is powerful, masculine, and graceful.
Greg was 16 at his first Olympics in 1976 in Montreal, and he won a silver medal in platform diving. Preparing for the Moscow 1980 Olympics he was in the prime of his diving career and the favorite for two gold medals. However, the USA boycotted those games so he lost the opportunity to compete. In the meantime at the world championships he became the first diver to earn perfect 10's from all seven judges in 1982. From that point on, he would never be beaten in a competition until 1987.
He was back to compete at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was no competition, though. His final score in the springboard event of 754.41 points was more than 100 better than his nearest rival. In the platform he was the first diver to score over 700 points. His total of 710.91 was nearly 70 points better than the silver medallist.
It looked like he was on his way to repeating this feat in Seoul in 1988, however in one of his preliminary springboard rounds he hit his head on the board and suffered a concussion. A half an hour later with stitches in his scalp, he completed the preliminaries with a variation on the same disastrous backwards dive - and earned the highest marks given in that event. He went on to earn the gold medal in springboard 25 points ahead of the nearest competition. The next week he took his second gold medal in the platform diving.
I was living in LA in 1984 and I remember that it was unspoken, but known in the gay community that Greg was one of us. By 1988 it was an open secret, not the least because his quite pushy boyfriend/manager had a habit of inserting himself into Greg's limelight. Greg discovered just before the 1988 Olympics that he was HIV positive. Throughout that competition he was on AZT every four hours.
He retired from the sport after the Olympics, dumped the skanky boyfriend, and focused on new pursuits, like acting. (I saw him on stage in the New York premiere of the play Jeffery, and as the prince in Cinderella in Long Beach.)
In 1995 he released his autobiography Breaking the Surface, where he publicly came out as both gay and HIV+. Several of his sponsors immediately dropped him - but not Speedo. They extended his contract - a relationship that continued until 2007.
Louganis has been an advocate on HIV issues and LGBT civil rights. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign.
It seems that the last few years have been pretty great. In 2012 he was asked to join the USA Diving team coaching staff for the London Olympics. (Shockingly, this is the first time anyone had asked for his help.) He was a judge on the diving reality show Spalsh. And, best of all, in 2013 he married his partner John Chaillot.
NPR contacted Tom Daley before they ran the Wheaties story, and Tom emailed them back:
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