Louganis Dives for the Gold : He Wins 3-Meter Record Third Time

It was a beautiful performance that gave Greg Louganis his unprecedented third straight gold medal in Pan American 3-meter springboard competition. And as far as Louganis is concerned, that’s what it’s all about.

He broke his own Pan Am Games scoring record with his total of 754.14 points, and he came within 1.35 points of breaking the world record of 755.49 that he set on the springboard at the 1983 USA International meet in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

But the score didn’t really mean much to him, one way or the other.

He has dominated this sport for so many years that he doesn’t bother with calculations as the meet goes on.

“I think of myself more as a performer,” Louganis has been saying.

And he is that.

Louganis played to a most appreciative audience Monday night at the Indiana University Natatorium. His special guest in the stands was Ryan White, a young AIDS victim who was befriended by Louganis several years ago at a meet here. White, from Kokomo, Ind., was one of the first school-age AIDS victims.

Once the crowd had left and the television and press conference interviews had been taken care of, Louganis spent almost 30 minutes with Ryan and his mother.

He had told the gathered media: “I was just pleased with my performance. Period. It felt good to be out there and have that kind of crowd support us.

“I remember a day when we were lucky to have some moms and dads out there. I didn’t see any extra seats.”

Doug Shaffer, who is from nearby Franklin, Ind., had his family in the stands. And Shaffer put on quite a show, too, winning the silver medal for the United States with a total of 684.39 points, his personal best.

Shaffer established himself as the silver medalist early in the competition, leaving the battle for the bronze to Jose Luis Rocha and Jesus Mena of Mexico; Abel Ramirez and Edgar Ospina of Cuba and John Nash of Canada.

Rocha, who will be a sophomore at Auburn, won the bronze for Mexico with a total of 659.07 points, putting some distance between himself and the rest of the field with a nice forward 1 1/2 somersault with three twists, good for 73.45 points. And he wrapped up with a nice reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists, good for 83.16 points.

Louganis had performed the same dive earlier in his program to score 92.07 on awards of 10, 10, 9.5, 9, 9, 9 and 9.

Again, he was close to his world record. It was on that dive that Louganis scored a best-ever single dive score of 99.00.

All told in his program Monday night, Louganis had 30 scores of 9.0, 13 scores of 9.5 and 7 scores of 10.

As Shaffer said: “I did the best 11 dives I could tonight, but Greg was hot.”

There have been nights when Shaffer was the one who was hot, and when Louganis has been a little distracted at the same time, Shaffer has been able to beat him.

Shaffer beat him on the 1-meter board at both the indoor and the outdoor nationals earlier this year. At the indoor nationals, Louganis lost on all three boards.

“I had a hurdle to get over at that time, and I was having a lot of doubts about myself,” said Louganis, who reportedly was having trouble with a personal relationship at the time. “My coach helped me then . . . Ron O’Brien (who is Louganis’ coach with the Mission Bay Makos and who also is the U.S. team coach) told me, if you don’t believe in yourself, then believe in me. Together, we’ll get through this. . . .

“He made me feel not so alone.”

O’Brien said that losing in that national meet was a turning point for Louganis in a couple of ways, and that Louganis decided at that time to put more time and commitment into his sport.

Now, at 27, he’s striving for perfect performances. And, of course, the scores are there when the performances are perfect.

Louganis needed a score of 81.35 on his last dive, a forward 3 1/2 somersault pike, in order to break his record. O’Brien chose not to tell him the score that he needed, reasoning that Louganis was doing well enough and didn’t need any more pressure.

When Louganis scored 79.98 points on scores ranging from 8.0 to 9.0, neither of them was too disappointed.

Louganis said: “I suppose I could go back and analyze every dive and think that I could have had another half-point here or another half-point there. But I don’t look back, I look ahead.

“I like to look ahead and try to improve.”

With the gold medal that Louganis won on the 3-meter board, he broke the Pan American Games record for total medals (which had been four) and for gold medals (which also had been four) that he had shared with Joaquin Capilla of Mexico.

Louganis had won both the springboard and platform gold medals in 1979 and 1983. Capilla had won both golds in 1951 and 1955.

If Louganis wins the gold medal on the platform here Sunday, he will be the first diver ever to accomplish what Magic Johnson might call a triple double--winning both gold medals three times.