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Back On Board: Greg Louganis


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I can remember in 1988 being so excited at watching Louganis in the diving competition. He was thrilling to watch; his diving was perfection. Of course, he was gorgeously handsome too, which was a plus. I can't remember if I heard much about his being HIV positive, but I was a preteen then, so it might have gone over my head.

It was wonderful to see him again. Older now, but still just a beautiful man, and a very soulful one. As for his hateful teammates, does anyone remember them?

The scenes of him as a mentor were moving...hard to believe the US Olympic Committee did not make use of his advice and talents before 2012. This was an unexpected pleasure.

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I also don't recall if there was much known about AIDS transmission at that time, other than by sex.  It does appear that neither Greg nor his coach even thought it was a concern, so I don't fault them for trying to salvage the competition.

 

I remember watching the dive where he hit his head.  Back then, I had no idea why he was overlooked for a Wheaties box, other than Mary Lou was "cuter" being a petite girl, and even looking back, I'm still surprised he didn't get a box for his accomplishments, rumors or not.  Its a shame the problems he endured after the Olympics and its so good of him to try and help the next generation not fall to some of the same scams he did. I'm glad he found happiness in his life.

I like Greg Louganis, but I think that he and his coach took a lot of risk in their pursuit of the gold medal. When he hit that diving board and bled in the pool, they didn't know if all the other athletes would get AIDS or not. At that time, AIDS was a death sentence. They should have been screaming, "He has AIDS, you need to clean the pool." They didn't. They would have let all the other athletes die in order to keep the whole thing quiet. They were very lucky at the way it all turned out. They were willing to kill a lot of people in order to keep their secret.

Except it was known by then, 1988, that HIV/AIDs was not transmittable via chlorinated pool water. There was no risk. The only risk was the mass hysteria that would have ensued by those who were ignorant and passing on false information, which was the norm at the time. I don't recall what talk show it was - Oprah? Phil Donahue? Not sure, but someone who had HIV was denied entry into the city's public pool because of the hysteria and the untruths being passed around that people could acquire the HIV infection in a public pool.

Edited by SPLAIN
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