HE CAN RISE TO ANY CHALLENGE — AS EVIDENCED WHEN HE WON FOUR OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS — BUT NOTHING WAS MORE DIFFICULT FOR DIVER GREG LOUGANIS THAN DISCOVERING HE WAS HIV POSITIVE AND LIVING WITH WHAT, AT THE TIME, SEEMED TO BE A DEATH SENTENCE

T H E S PORT AWARD

WORDS: MATT CAIN // PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN RUSSO

When Greg Louganis arrives to have his photograph taken for Attitude, he seems shy and is softly spoken. But he’s eager to tell me that he’s just been to an industry reading of a musical inspired by his life and the lives of various people he’s met who’ve drawn hope from it.

“A father read my autobiography Breaking the Surface,” he says, “and thanked me because he was having a difficult time accepting his gay son, and it helped him to understand and accept the boy.

“And a woman of colour from the Mid West, who identified as straight and had two daughters, came to one of my events after she saw my documentary Back on Board, and said: ‘You gave me the courage to come out to my friends and family’.”

We’re talking in a private house in the Hollywood Hills, not far from the home Greg shares with his husband, paralegal Johnny Chaillot.

The former Olympic diver is tanned and handsome, and has a gentleness about him. He seems thoughtful and his speech is peppered with long pauses.

But his enthusiasm for the project is easy to identify and, as he speaks, he seems much younger than his 57 years.

“We want everybody in the audience to realise that they have a hero in themselves,” he says with a smile.

Greg’s latest venture might seem a long way away from the diving career that made him famous — winning a total of four gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. But actually, he explains, it represents a return to his roots in drama and dance. He says he’s always seen himself as a performer rather than a sportsman, and that all the training he did to compete was the same as rehearsing for a big show.