Standing on the podium at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Greg Louganis knew he was done. With his last ever competitive dive, he’d secured his second gold medal of the week and become the first male diver to win double gold in consecutive Games. His career total: three Games, four gold medals, one silver. He had become the greatest American diver ever; arguably the greatest ever full stop.
Six months before the Games, Louganis, then 28, had found out he was HIV positive. The Aids crisis was growing and there were no out gay athletes, let alone out HIV-positive ones. “I was gonna do the honourable thing, and pack my bags, go home, lock myself in my house and wait to die, because that’s what we thought of HIV at the time,” he says. But his doctor (who was also Louganis’s cousin) told him the healthiest thing he could do was continue training. So he carried on: not just with the gruelling training for the Olympics, but an exhausting programme of antiretroviral medication – in total secrecy. “The one thing that the diving did for me is give me a positive focus in my life,” he says. Still, his diagnosis had terrifying implications beyond his health; Louganis worried about it leaking to the press and of the public shame and possible expulsion that would follow.
