The “ten” jumper who contracted HIV and lived for years with Seoul 88’s remorse

 

On World AIDS Day, Greg Louganis, the greatest jumper in history, is one of the greatest activists

On World AIDS Day, athletes who contracted HIV, such as Magic Jonhson. The most visible face, or tennis player Arthur Ashe, flood the minds. Surely none with a history as powerful and Hollywood as the jumper Louganis (California,1960), double Olympic champion in Los Angeles 84 and Seoul 88 on platform and on a 3m springboard, who from 1982 until his retirement in 1989 had no rival and created school, as recalled by the technician of the Royal Spanish Swimming Federation Donald Miranda: “His aesthetic was unique. It was the example of the ten”.

That aura of Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast to achieve that score at the Montreal Games in 1976, where Louganis, at the age of 16, already hung a silver on platform, accompanied him during his tormented life away from a trampoline. It is paradoxical that the American felt more secure on the heights, about to throw himself head at 50 km/h into the pool, a courage that defines his history, than in other places a priori safer.

A few days after seeing the light, Louganis had to live the first difficulty. His parents were 15. He was from Samoa and she was of Nordic descent, a genuine mestizo. Without the ability to give him a training and take care of him, the Louganis family, made up of Peter and Frances, adopted him. If the mother was protective and help, the father barely took interest in his son until he understood that he had innate sports skills, as Louganis explains in his biography Breaking the Surface.

As a child, Louganis had problems at school. He was dyslexic, so he didn´t read fluid, which led him endure the bullying of his companions. He found refuge in gymnastics, also loved dancing and applied what he learned on his parents’ house trampoline. Which led hi to specialize in trampoline jumps, where in age category he already achieved tens. And he arrived at his first Games in Montreal, where he hung a silver. The beginning of a success that is defined with four other Olympic golds and five world golds.

In between, Louganis fought everything and everyone. Admired on top of the trampoline, life was only injured when he stepped on the mainland. Fellow and public people laughed at him for his dawn at a time when one was leaving the closet, while his manager and boyfriend Jim Babbitt abused him (he even threatened him with a knife) and in 1987 contracted HIV. Louganis took the test before the Seoul Games and also tested positive.