In at the deep end

Somebody really ought to give Greg Louganis a medal.

That may sound a strange thing to say about a five-time medal-winning Olympian, the man whom all the experts call the world’s greatest-ever diver. As the only male athlete to have won back-to-back gold medals in both springboard and platform diving events and the only man to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympics, Greg Louganis has been festooned with medals more than almost anybody on earth. None of his achievements, however, is more deserving of honour than his actions today.

Three of Louganis’s Olympic medals are about to be auctioned by Bonhams. They are the Gold he won at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul; the Gold he won in Los Angeles in 1984; and the Silver he was awarded at his first Olympics in Montreal, at the age of 16. He has also rediscovered in his Topanga house the actual bathing suit he wore at those Montreal Games, and is adding that to the sale.

In putting them up for sale, Greg’s intention is to ensure that “the medals should have a life beyond me. The achievements are all in the history books but each medal has a story and to share that story can do some good.”

To that end, he is donating a portion of the proceeds of the auction to the cause that he has supported throughout his adult life – LGBTQ+ rights. Specifically, the money will go to the Damien Center AIDS service organisation in Indianapolis and its One Home Capital Campaign initiative, which is in need of a new building.

Louganis has been aware of the organisation since the 1980s, and says: “It’s a kind of one-stop shop providing services for people living with HIV/AIDS. There’s healthcare, mental care, dentistry, a food bank and so on. They’re bursting at the seams. My goal is to raise enough money where I can name a welcome centre after Ryan White [the haemophiliac Indiana teenager who became a national figure after he was barred from attending high school after having been diagnosed with AIDS in 1984]. There is also a welcome lounge. I want to name that after my mom, Frances Louganis.”

Frances, who inspired and supported Greg’s progress throughout his career and died in 2004, was Greg’s adoptive mother. He had been born in 1960 in El Cajon, California, to a teenage girl of Swedish descent and an equally young father who was Samoan. The baby was taken into the state’s fostering system and, when he was eight months old, was adopted by Frances and her husband Peter, who worked in California’s fishing industry and was of Greek descent.

They named the infant Gregory Efthimios Louganis.

The couple already had an adopted daughter who was crazy about dance, gymnastics and acrobatics. The little boy started imitating her in all those activities – and trampolining – when he was as young as 18 months. He was nine when the family acquired a swimming pool, and Greg then combined all of those pursuits into diving. He had discovered his God-given talent.

He also got into every kind of trouble and was lucky not to have been caught up in the justice system, from which he might never have emerged. The Louganises had never concealed the truth about his birth but, by his own account, Greg was deeply disturbed by the idea that his own parents couldn’t love him enough to look after him. That disturbance led him into “a horrible rebellion. I was out of control and wouldn’t let anybody in.”

Stay updated with our auctions. Sign up to receive your weekly newsletter of global auctions, stories and more from Bonhams and our sister companies. Subscribe now

Diving saved him. Through a succession of high schools in southern California, he progressed in his early teens to the 1974 Junior Olympics in Lincoln, Nebraska. There, he was spotted by Dr Sammy Lee, the extraordinary diver of Korean descent, born in 1920, who had won Gold for the USA in the 10m diving event at both the 1948 London Olympics and at Helsinki 1952. Dr Lee coached 16-year-old Greg to compete at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In the tower event, Greg won the Silver medal that is in the Bonhams sale. Two years later, under the tutelage of the legendary Ron O’Brien, he won the World Championship for the first time. O’Brien understood that Greg was a performer, rather than a competitor and so was able to coach him in a way no one else did. They are still close to this day.

Greg was diagnosed HIV-positive six months before the 1988 Seoul Olympics. That didn’t stop him winning two Gold medals. In the 10m final, he won with a dive still regarded as one of the most perfect ever executed, and accumulated a total of points that has never been exceeded.

It’s not easy now to remember that there was a widespread view that HIV was so virulent that it would kill on the most innocuous contact. It was partly in order to combat such misplaced prejudice that Greg Louganis devoted much of his life after Seoul and retirement from competitive diving. He came out publicly as HIV-positive; worked with the UN Human Rights Committee to defend the human rights of AIDS victims; joined the board of directors of the charitable foundation run by Princess Charlene of Monaco; and supported the Damien Center, which will now benefit from the auction of his medals.

Greg also mentored and coached young divers; published his autobiography; successfully ventured into acting on stage and film; and achieved national prominence – winning yet more medals – entering dogs in agility competitions. Being with his dogs gives him, he says, “a sense of security, company and unconditional love”.

Further to his search for love, in 2013 Greg Louganis entered one of the first same-sex marriages in America with his partner Johnny Chaillot (they were divorced in 2022, but remain good friends), and he was also reunited with his natural parents, those long-lost teenagers, bringing him peace, at last, with his turbulent past.

If, therefore, anybody is going to present Greg Louganis with a medal today, perhaps it should be the President of the United States. And perhaps that medal should be his country’s highest decoration: the Congressional Medal of Honor.

He deserves it.

Harry Fisher writes about sports and society.