I watched Greg Louganis on TV at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and wanted to dive the next day. I did it for a while too. Then the pool time and coaching got too expensive and I stopped.
That history shapes how I rank his influence below. Each point is either a documented record or my own opinion. I say which is which as we go.
5. He gave divers a performer's standard
Louganis trained as a dancer and gymnast before he ever climbed a platform. His dives looked different from the rest of the field because of it. Viewers saw lines and timing and control instead of a list of tricks.
That is my reading rather than a measured fact. Still, divers today are expected to look clean from takeoff to entry. He was a big part of why that standard feels normal.
4. He made the perfect 10 a real target
On August 5, 1982, Louganis scored the first perfect 10 in diving at a World Championships, according to Guinness World Records. The event was in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He won gold on both the 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform that year.
A perfect 10 stopped being a rumor after that. Every diver since has had a number to aim at.
3. He set a margin nobody had seen
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics he scored 754.41 on the springboard. Olympics.com calls that the biggest winning margin in the history of the event.
Four days later he won the platform too. No diver had taken both events at one Games since Pete Desjardins in 1928. The result raised what a dominant diving performance looks like.
2. He defended the double on the biggest stage
Four years later in Seoul he won both events again. That made it the second Games in a row with a springboard and platform double. The platform final ended with a last dive that I think about more than any other: a reverse 3½ somersault in the tuck position (knees pulled tight to the chest). He needed 85.57 points to win and scored 86.70. The full story is on the Greg Louganis Olympics page.
Winning once is hard. Winning again with the whole world watching sets the bar for every young diver who hopes to be called a champion.
1. He made diving popular
This one is my opinion and I will not dress it up as a statistic. Louganis made diving feel like a sport worth watching for people who had never set foot near a pool. I am one of those people.
The rest of his career points the same direction. At the Rio 2016 Olympics he worked as a mentor to young divers. NewsChannel 9 reported him telling them to treat the energy of the venue as inspiration rather than pressure because the crowd wants them to succeed. He also told them to be true to themselves. Collegiate diver Brandon Rosolowski called him a mentor to the whole US team.
In October 2016 he did a synchronized dive (two divers performing the same dive together) with British Olympic champion Tom Daley at the pool where Daley first learned to dive. Attitude covered it. Louganis tweeted afterward that he had enjoyed himself and thanked Daley for being such a good sport.
That pairing matters to me for a simple reason. A diver from the 1980s and a diver from the 2010s shared one board and one dive. Few sports let two eras meet like that.
His advice in Rio fits the same pattern. A young diver heading into a loud venue hears two options: treat the noise as pressure or treat it as support. He picked support and told them why. It is a short piece of coaching that any athlete can use after a single read.
The young diver I follow now
My favorite young diver is Ruslan Ternovoi. He is 25 and brings a lot of passion to the sport. According to Wikipedia he took silver in the 10-meter synchro (the two-person platform event) at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore. He then won the 10-meter platform and the 10-meter synchro at the 2026 European Championships in Paris.
I have found no source saying Louganis influenced Ternovoi so I will not claim it. I am a fan of both and that is the whole connection.
The cost problem
The influence has a limit that I know firsthand. Louganis got me into the water and the expense got me out. Training, pool time and coaching add up quickly for a family or a student.
If the sport keeps growing the way he started it, cost is the barrier I would most like people to talk about. A diver can only follow his example if they can afford the lessons.
I still think he is the greatest diver ever. That is my view and I am sticking to it.
Sources: Guinness World Records, Olympics.com, NewsChannel 9, Attitude, Wikipedia.