THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Diving : Louganis Secures His Third Double, Looks to the Future

It wasn’t perfection. It wasn’t even his best performance ever off the 10-meter diving platform. But it was Greg Louganis, and that always means power and grace and beauty and another gold medal.

So dominating is Louganis that he could have skipped his last dive--or he could have amused the capacity crowd at the Indiana University Natatorium with a cannonball if he had felt so inclined--and still he would have won his second gold medal of these Games.

With the gold medal that he won in springboard competition last Monday, Louganis became the first diver ever to win a “triple double,” gold medals in both diving events in three Pan Am Games. He won both golds in San Juan in 1979, in Caracas in 1983 and here.

Which is indicative of just how dominant he has been in his sport over the last decade.

Louganis had a total of 694.68 points Sunday. Matt Scoggin, a graduate of the University of Texas and one of the Longhorn Divers, won the silver for the United States with 596.94 points. David Bedard won the bronze for Canada with 546.33.

When Louganis is on, no one can come close to him. Halfway through the competition he led by almost 30 points. And with two 10s on his ninth dive (a back 3 1/2 somersault in tuck position) and a 10 to go with 9s and 9.5s on his last dive (a reverse 3 1/2 somersault in tuck position) he was untouchable.

But the scramble for the other spots was intense. Scoggin dropped from second place to sixth place when he missed on his fifth dive, an armstand cut-through reverse 1 1/2 somersault. But he worked his way back up slowly as the two Mexican divers, Jorge Mondragon and Jesus Mena--at one point second and third in the standings--worked their way out of contention.

Mondragon blew his eighth dive and Mena missed on his eighth, ninth and tenth while Scoggin got stronger and Bedard held steady.

Scoggin said that he was able to come back from his missed dive without losing confidence because he had done it before. In fact, he beat Louganis at the national indoor meet last April after blowing that first optional dive.

“It didn’t hurt to know that,” Scoggin said.

Scoggin, who turns 24 today, won his first national title when he beat Louganis.

As long as Louganis is competing, national titles for other divers will be that rare. Louganis already has won 43 national titles. He really doesn’t want to retire until after he has beaten swimmer Tracy Caulkins’ record of 48 national titles.

But as his longtime friend and business manager Jim Babbitt points out, “Tracy was chalking those up at a rate of about six every meet in all her different events. Greg can only get a couple at a time and he’s been at it much longer.”

He’s been at it for about 17 years, and for most of that time, he’s been defying description with his performances. As Vince Panzano, coach of the McDonald’s Divers and one of the U.S. coaches here assessed it Sunday afternoon: “No. 1, he’s tremendously strong. No. 2 he is graceful. He combines strength and power with beauty. You rarely come across someone who has both to such a degree.

“The sport is about grace and beauty. He combines that with power.”

And Panzano forgot to mention stage presence and showmanship.

Louganis is a presence. He inspires applause when he’s trying to practice, and oohs and aahs with the handstand that precedes one of his dives.

He puts on a show.

He’ll be performing in Indianapolis again in October when he makes his professional dancing debut with a troupe called Dance Kaleidoscope.

Louganis wasn’t sure of the exact dates of his performances, but Babbitt called out from the back of the room that Louganis would be a special guest artist Oct. 21-25 at the Repertory Theater.

Louganis was asked what else he would be doing until his next competition, which might be in December in Boca Raton or might be in January in Australia. And he needed help on that, too.

Louganis said, “I think I’m going to be busy.” Babbitt nodded and Louganis changed that to “I’m going to be busy.”

He’ll be doing exhibitions and appearances, commercials and a couple of movie parts.

Louganis, 27, explained that he can do a lot more now and keep his amateur status.

“When I was talking about retiring after 1984, the rules were different,” Louganis said. “Now I can have a trust fund. I can do endorsements and appearances and I can put the money in a trust fund. I can draw from that fund for living and training expenses.

“I count my blessings that I’m able to do that.”

So now he’s not talking about retiring. He’s talking about the ’88 Olympics. And he’s talking about improving.

He was wonderful flying through the air Sunday, but he was a little splashy on some of his entries. He wants to get that cleaned up.

He’s concentrating on the beauty of his performances and his goal to get an 800 on the 3-meter board and to score more than 700 consistently on the platform.

His score Sunday, which broke his own Pan Am record, was his third best ever. He had a 717.41 in the 1986 Mission Bay Challenge and he had a 710.91 at the ’84 Olympics.

“To meet those goals I would have to average 9.5s on all 11 dives on the springboard and average 8.9 on all 10 platform dives,” Louganis said. “I was close to that today, so I was happy.”