Early Life
Louganis is of Samoan and Swedish descent. His teenaged parents gave him up for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by his adoptive parents, a Greek-American couple. He started taking dance and acrobatics and gymnastics classes at 18 months, after witnessing his sister's classes and attempting to join in. By the age of three he was practicing daily and was competing and giving public performances. For the next few years he regularly competed and performed at nursing homes and other places, including the local naval base. He was also diagnosed with asthma and allergies as a child and was encouraged to keep up his dance and gymnastics classes to help with them; the press later falsely reported that he had taken them up because of his asthma. He also took up trampolining, and at the age of nine began diving lessons, after the family got a swimming pool and he began attempting his trampoline moves on the diving board. He attended Santana High School in Santee, California, and Valhalla High School in El Cajon, California.
Read more about this topic: Greg Louganis
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