A “magical” experience brought Greg Louganis love, acceptance and gold in 1984 Olympics

When the 1984 Summer Olympics began in Los Angeles, Greg Louganis was already an Olympic silver medalist and three-time world champion diver. He was the favorite to win gold in the 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform, and yet he still felt he had something to prove, not to the world but to himself … and to his parents.

“It came from a desperate place, that need to win,” Louganis said. “I’m adopted, so I felt like a throwaway kid. I went through lots of challenges and thought, if I can be thrown away once, I can be thrown away again.

“That was my fear. For me to be loved or worthy of being loved, I had to win.”

And so he did.

Despite the internal demons and external challenges faced in the form of his parents’ impending divorce, Louganis, a California native, thrived in the comfort of competing in his backyard. Not only did he win gold in both events, he smashed scoring records in each, dominating his competition in the process.

On the 3-meter springboard, Louganis scored a 754.41, nearly 100 points clear of his closest competitor, to earn gold. But he wasn’t done. He followed it up days later with a 710.91 on the 10-meter platform, finishing almost 70 points ahead of second place.

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“When you watch the award ceremonies, you can tell which is which, because in the 3-meter springboard (ceremony), you can see I’m very stoic,” Louganis said. “I was thinking, OK, I still have the 10-meter platform. I was already preparing for the next event. My coach Ron O’Brien and I still had a job to do.

“But when the 10-meter platform happened and I broke 700, oh my God, I lost it. It was very, very emotional.”

For Louganis, that win was the culmination of a self-described “magical” experience at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where the feeling around Los Angeles was different than usual and other ingredients came together to provide him with an experience he hasn’t forgotten.

“Everybody was of a good mind and in a good mood, and there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic,” Louganis said. “My parents were in the stands, and being able to share that (experience) with so many people was incredible.”

Louganis was in a city he loved and with a coach he trusted unconditionally, but there was still one piece of validation he needed. He had heard the words many times before, but they never fully hit home, he said, until his 1984 Olympic experience.

“Mom told me she loved me,” Louganis said. “But more importantly, she showed me her love was unconditional, that it was something I could always rely on. Whenever I was in a stressful situation, I’d always tell myself, ‘No matter what happens, my mother’s still gonna love me.’ ”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A “magical” experience brought Greg Louganis love, acceptance and gold in 1984 Olympics