This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2009)

Greg Louganis

Photograph by Alan Light
Personal information
Full name	Gregory Efthimios Louganis
Born	(1960-01-29) January 29, 1960 (age 52) El Cajon, California
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Sport
Country	United States
Event(s)	1m, 3m, 10m
College team	University of Miami and University of California, Irvine
Medal record Olympic Games Silver 1976 Montreal 10m Platform Gold 1984 Los Angeles 3m Springboard Gold 1984 Los Angeles 10m Platform Gold 1988 Seoul 3m Springboard Gold 1988 Seoul 10m Platform World Championships Gold 1978 Berlin 10m Platform Gold 1982 Guayaquil 3m Springboard Gold 1982 Guayaquil 10m Platform Gold 1986 Madrid 3m Springboard Gold 1986 Madrid 10m Platform Pan American Games Gold 1979 San Juan 3m Springboard Gold 1979 San Juan 10m Platform Gold 1983 Caracas 3m Springboard Gold 1983 Caracas 10m Platform Gold 1987 Indianapolis 3m Springboard Gold 1987 Indianapolis 10m Platform Summer Universiade Gold 1983 Edmonton 3m Springboard Gold 1983 Edmonton 10m Platform

Gregory "Greg" Efthimios Louganis ( /luːˈɡeɪnɨs/) (born January 29, 1960) is an American Olympic diver and author.

He received the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in 1984 as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States.

Early life[link]

Louganis is of Samoan/Swedish descent. His teenaged parents gave him up for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by his adoptive parents, a Greek-American couple. As a child he suffered from asthma and a string of allergies; his doctor suggested an exercise program would strengthen his lungs. He was taken to his sister's dance class, and also took up gymnastics and trampoline. He began diving lessons at age eight after the family got a swimming pool and he began attempting his trampoline moves on the diving board.^[1] He attended Santana High School in Santee, California, and Valhalla High School in El Cajon, California.

Diving career[link]

As a Junior Olympic competitor Louganis caught the eye of Dr. Sammy Lee, two-time Olympic champion, who began coaching him. At sixteen Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legend Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coach Ron O'Brien. In 1978, he accepted a diving scholarship to the University of Miami where he studied theater, but in 1981 transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but an American boycott of the games prevented him from participating. Louganis won two titles at the world championships in 1982, where he became the first diver in a major international meeting to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges.^[1] At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.

After winning two more world championship titles in 1986, he repeated his 1984 feat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, although not without difficulties: he suffered a concussion after hitting his head on the springboard during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2½ pike. He completed the preliminaries despite his injury, earning the highest single score of the qualifying for his next dive, and went on to repeat the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal by a margin of 25 points.^[1] In the 10m finals he won the gold medal performing a 3.4 difficulty dive in his last attempt, earning 86.70 points for a total of 638.61, surpassing silver medalist Xiong Ni by only 1.14 points.^[1] His comeback earned him the title of ABC's Wide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.

At the time of the 1988 accident Louganis did not disclose to the public that he was infected with HIV, a diagnosis he had received six months before the Olympics. His doctor placed him on the antiretroviral drug AZT, which he took every four hours round the clock. It was 1994 when Louganis announced to the world that he was gay. He took part in the 1994 Gay Games as a diving announcer as well as putting on a diving exhibition for capacity crowds. In 1995, Louganis cowrote his autobiography Breaking the Surface, with the assistance of author Eric Marcus. In the book Louganis detailed a relationship of domestic abuse and rape, as well as teenage depression, and how he began smoking and drinking at a young age.^[1] He also disclosed to the world that he was HIV positive. As expected at that time, most of his corporate sponsors dropped him as a client when they heard the news of his HIV status. The exception was swimsuit manufacturer Speedo, who retained him as an endorser of their products until 2007. After his announcement, people in and out of the international diving community began to question Louganis's decision not to disclose his HIV status at the time of his head injury during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Their concern was that because of the bloody nature of his injury, Louganis placed all of his diving competitors at risk of being exposed to HIV. The United States Olympic Committee expressed great concern about the possibility of HIV exposure.^[2]

Personal life[link]

Greg Louganis is openly gay. After he tested positive for HIV in 1988,^[3][4] he recounted his story in a best-selling autobiography Breaking the Surface co-written with Eric Marcus. The book spent five weeks at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. His story was also documented in the 1996 Showtime movie Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story with Mario Lopez playing the lead and Louganis narrating.

He also produced a video diary called Looking To the Light, which picked up where Breaking the Surface left off. In the years since his diagnosis was made public Louganis has been an outspoken HIV awareness advocate. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign to defend the civil liberties of the LGBT community and people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.^[5]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, he took on a number of roles in movies, including Touch Me in 1997 and David Oliveras' debut movie Watercolors in role of Coach Brown, a swimming instructor in a high school.

In September 2000, he appeared on Hollywood Squares as a member of famous Olympic gold medalists "Dream Team", competing in a special week of the nationally-syndicated game show series, broadcast as a tribute to the 2000 Summer Games. The episodes marked the first time that all these champions came together for this kind of television competition.

In the October/November 2010 issue of ABILITY Magazine, Louganis stated that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is "absurd," "unconstitutional," and a "witch-hunt." He added that "gay men and women have been serving this country for years. . . [it's] basically encouraging people who are serving our country to lie to each other." ^[6]

Also in 2012, he appeared in the penultimate episode of the second season of IFC's comedy Portlandia.

Among other influences, actor Michael Fassbender took Louganis's gait and mannerisms as inspiration for his portrayal of an advanced humanoid robot in the 2012 film Prometheus,^[7] stating that "Louganis was my first inspiration. I figured that I'd sort of base my physicality roughly around him, and then it kind of went from there."^[8]

Dog agility[link]

Louganis competed actively in dog agility competitions with his dogs Dr. Schivago, Captain Woof Blitzer, Nipper, Gryffindor (Gryff), Dobby and Hedwig (named for characters in the Harry Potter series).^[9] He published his book For the Life of Your Dog co-written with Betty Sicora Siino.

Coaching[link]

Since November 2010, Louganis has been coaching divers of a wide range of ages and abilities in the SoCal Divers Club in Fullerton, California.^[10]

Filmography[link]

Films in which Greg Louganis has appeared:

• Dirty Laundry (1987) as Larry
• Inside Out III (1992) as Max in the segment "The Wet Dream"
• Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story (narrator)
• It's My Party (1996) as Dan Zuma
• Broken Record (1997 TV movie) as Coach Hill
• Touch Me (1997) as David
• Watercolors (2008) as Coach Brown
• 30 for 30: "Tim Richmond: To the Limit" (2010)
• Portlandia, season 2/ episode 9, (2012) as himself

See also[link]

• World Fit

References[link]

External links[link]

• Greg Louganis official web site
• Greg Louganis Official Bio
• Greg Louganis biography at Olympic Movement official web site
• Greg Louganis to keynote DBSA 2007 National Conference
• Greg Louganis -
• Greg Louganis profile at NNDB
• http://www.facebook.com/greglouganisondwts?bookmark_t=page

Esau Mwamwaya is a singer from Lilongwe, Malawi. He is best known for his collaboration, The Very Best with London based DJ/production duo Radioclit. His music has been described as an Afro-Western mix of dance, hiphop, pop and the traditional music of Malawi.

Esau Mwamwaya was born in Mzuzu, Malawi, but grew up in the capital, Lilongwe, where he played drums in various bands.^[1] He played with numerous artists including Masaka Band and Evison Matafale.

In 1999 he moved to London and while running a second-hand furniture shop in Clapton, East London, Esau sold a bicycle to the producer from the band Radioclit, Etienne Tron. Radioclit's studio was on the same street as Esau's shop, and eventually, Esau became friends with both Tron and Johan Karlberg aka Radioclit.^[1]

In 2008, the three men worked together to create a project known as 'The Very Best', releasing a critically lauded free mixtape through the label GREEN OWL(^[1]) in collaboration with other indie artists, including M.I.A., Vampire Weekend, Architecture in Helsinki, BLK JKS, Santigold and the Ruby Suns. The songs are sung in Chichewa, the national language of Malawi.^[2]

On the heels of the mixtape, The Very Best produced their first full-length album, Warm Heart of Africa, released digitally in August 2009 and released physically in October 2009 by GREEN OWL and Moshi Moshi. The album features collaborations with Ezra Koenig and M.I.A.

The Very Best is also featured on a track on Crookers debut album, Tons of Friends.^[3]

Winner of 9th Annual Independent Music Awards: World Beat song for "Warm Heart of Africa" featuring Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig

Discography[link]

The Very Best[link]

• Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are the Very Best (2008)
• Warm Heart of Africa (2009)
• Super Mom (2011)
• MTMTMK (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Warm Heart of Africa Review
• Warm Heart of Africa Review/Recensione on QuelloCheSento(Italian Language)
• The Very Best Interview

Matt Scoggin

Personal information
Born	August 17, 1963
Medal record Men's Diving Competitor for the  United States Pan American Games Silver 1987 Indianapolis 10m Platform

Mathew ("Matt") Aaron Scoggin (born August 17, 1963 in Saitama, Japan) is a retired diver from the United States. He competed for Team USA at the 1992 Summer Olympics, finishing in tenth place in the Men's 10m Platform event. Scoggin won a silver medal in the same event at the 1987 Pan American Games.

Since 1994, Scoggin has been the Diving Coach for his alma mater, the University of Texas.

He is often called one of the greatest diving coaches in the country.

References[link]

• sports-reference
• Scoggin's bio from the University of Texas.
• Northern Virginia Swim League - Diving

This biographical article related to diving is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This biographical article related to American sports is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e