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Relive Greg Louganis’ diving board accident on 30th anniversary

By Nick ZaccardiSep 19, 2018, 7:00 AM EDT
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Before the 1996 Olympics, an international panel of journalists selected one outstanding Olympian from each previous Summer Games.

Greg Louganis was chosen from Seoul 1988.

Wednesday marks 30 years since Louganis smacked his head on the springboard in the preliminary round of those Olympics, though he still qualified for the next day’s final and earned gold.

“After hitting my head on the springboard, I was really scared,” Louganis said in an NBC interview at prelims, after receiving four stitches and performing two more dives. “My concern was I didn’t know how bad the injury was. Fortunately, it was just a minor cut. … Those kinds of things are bad to look at [laugh].”

That wasn’t the whole story.

Louganis revealed seven years later, after retiring, that he had been HIV positive at the time of the Seoul Olympics.

His coach, Ron O’Brien, one of the few who knew, smuggled the medication into Seoul, Louganis said, because he wouldn’t have been allowed in if it was known he was HIV positive.

Louganis revisited the incident for an NBC profile ahead of the 1996 Atlanta Games.

“I heard this big, hollow thud, and then I went crashing into the water,” Louganis said. “Then I realized that was my head that just hit the board. My first feelings were embarrassment, and I was trying to figure out how to get out of the pool without anybody seeing me. And then I got scared because I knew I was HIV positive. Had I done it all over again, I would have told the doctor of my HIV status. That’s the only person that really needed to know.”

Louganis remains one of just two divers to sweep the springboard and platform at multiple Olympics, along with countrywoman Pat McCormick.

NBC Olympic Research contributed to this report.

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Lawsuit alleges USA Diving ignored sex abuse of divers

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Associated PressJul 17, 2018, 6:22 AM EDT
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Two former divers are suing USA Diving, accusing the national governing body of ignoring or obstructing inquiries into allegations that a coach sexually abused them when they were young athletes dreaming of Olympic glory.

The federal lawsuit, filed last week, names Indianapolis-based USA Diving, Inc., the Ohio State University Diving Club and Will Bohonyi.

The suit alleges that Bohonyi, who had coached at the Ohio State University Diving Club and was fired in 2014, coerced and forced the divers into frequent sex, telling them, “You owe me this,” the Indianapolis Star reported.

Calls to a telephone listing for Bohonyi’s most recent Columbus, Ohio, address went unanswered.

USA Diving declined to comment Monday, with a spokeswoman saying that, “Providing a safe environment for our members is of tremendous importance to USA Diving, and we take these matters very seriously.”

Ohio State spokesman Ben Johnson said the school opened an administrative investigation in 2014 after learning about the allegations against Bohonyi and he was fired in August 2014.

The university said Bohonyi was hired as a part-time, paid assistant diving coach in September 2012 and remained in that role until his termination.

Bohonyi has been on USA Diving’s list of banned coaches since 2015, but the lawsuit alleges that action didn’t happen until six months after Ohio State University investigated one of the women’s allegations and fired him. The report, the suit contends, was provided to USA Diving.

During that time period, it alleges that Bohonyi forced that girl — an Olympic hopeful — to perform sex acts numerous times while she was a minor.

She also sent him hundreds of naked photos, the suit alleges, saying that Bohonyi “psychologically coerced” her into believing that she “was required to perform sexual services in exchange for her continued involvement in diving.”

“He preyed on her age, vulnerability, and dreams of becoming an Olympian, and used the power structure and imbalance of power (coach/athlete) to make her believe she was required to sexually service him in exchange for her involvement in diving for Team USA,” it alleges.

The suit also alleges that Ohio State has had possession of the naked photos for almost four years and “no action has been taken.”

Ohio State said it notified campus police, USA Diving and Franklin County Children’s Services, as well as law enforcement in Montgomery County, Maryland, where the lawsuit says teammates discovered the diver’s sexual relationship with Bohonyi at a national competition.

Johnson said Monday that a campus police investigation was opened in August 2014 and then closed at the complainant’s request before being reopened this January, also at the former diver’s request.

He said university police are working with the county prosecutor’s office in that pending investigation.

Allegations of sexual misconduct also are the focus of a separate, independent investigation pending about a now-dead Ohio State team doctor accused of groping male athletes and other students decades ago.

The physician, Richard Strauss, worked at Ohio State for two decades before retiring in 1998. The university says allegations against Strauss have been raised by former athletes from 14 sports. The independent investigators are reviewing those claims and well as whether the university knew of concerns about Strauss.

The other diver named in the lawsuit alleges that starting in 2009, that Bohonyi, who was her coach, cultivated an abusive relationship, eventually coercing her into daily sex.

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MORE: David Boudia’s diving comeback delayed by concussion

David Boudia’s diving comeback delayed by concussion

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By Nick ZaccardiMay 14, 2018, 3:01 PM EDT
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Four-time Olympic diving medalist David Boudia is missing this week’s national championships and next month’s FINA World Cup, the biggest competition of the year, due to a concussion suffered in a crash off the 10m platform.

“Since February I’ve been struggling with dizziness, blackouts, numbness, and fatigue which I assumed resulted from high anxiety from a crash I had from 10m (Having struggled with high anxiety in the past I choose to push through it and chalked it to that),” was posted on Boudia’s social media Monday. “After going to our team physician, the crash resulted in a concussion and was not resolving due to a lack of recovery (continuing to dive on my head). Unfortunately, this means that I will be out of competition for our major events (National Championship & World Cup) because of the time off to recover. Hard to swallow that having been training for almost a year to get back to elite competition which mean I get to choose to be content with the end goal in mind and push on towards #tokyo2020 and more importantly trusting in the Lord’s plan for my pursuit toward diving and giving up my own plans.”

Boudia, 29, has not competed since taking individual bronze and synchronized silver on the platform in Rio. He also earned individual gold and synchro bronze in 2012.

He considered retirement after his third Olympics but announced in September he planned to return to competition this year after taking the 2017 season off, missing the world championships for the first time in a senior career that dates to 2005.

“I just missed the relationships that I had at the pool, that I had with the diving community,” Boudia said then in West Lafayette, Ind., where he trains at Purdue University. “I don’t want to be 35, 40 years old and say what if I would have given it another shot? Kind of too late at that point.”

Boudia, after never taking more than three months away from diving since 2000, turned to real estate after the Rio Games.

“If you would have asked me in 2015 if I was done [after Rio], I would have said yes; I was drained,” Boudia said in September. “One of the big reasons, apart from being exhausted mentally, I just felt like [diving] wasn’t what I was supposed to do. You have all the people saying, oh, you’re getting older. You’re 28. You need to start retiring, thinking about what you’re going to do next in life. It’s fun banter. My teammates would call me grandpa. In my mind, I was thinking, maybe it’s time for me to be done in the sport. I let it simmer.”

Boudia’s platform gold in 2012 ended a medal drought for U.S. divers in individual events since Laura Wilkinson‘s surprise Sydney 2000 title.

Boudia is the only U.S. male diver to top the Olympic platform since Greg Louganis, who swept the springboard and platform in 1984 and 1988.

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Since February I’ve been struggling with dizziness, blackouts, numbness, and fatigue which I assumed resulted from high anxiety from a crash I had from 10m (Having struggled with high anxiety in the past I choose to push through it and chalked it to that) – after going to our team physician, the crash resulted in a concussion and was not resolving due to a lack of recovery (continuing to dive on my head). Unfortunately, this means that I will be out of competition for our major events (National Championship & World Cup) because of the time off to recover. Hard to swallow that having been training for almost a year to get back to elite competition which mean I get to choose to be content with the end goal in mind and push on towards #tokyo2020 and more importantly trusting in the Lord’s plan for my pursuit toward diving and giving up my own plans.

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