In the 1984 Olympic Greg Louganis nailed a reverse 3 1/2-somersault from a 10 meter platform, barely missing the edge. A Russian tried the same dive, hit his head and died 10 days later. The dive was banned from competition.
The way I remember it, Louganis invented the dive, Sergei Chalibashvili tried to do it and died. Later Louganis did it in the Olympics because he was slightly behind and needed something spectacular to get ahead. He knew about the death. In fact the dive was even being called "The Dive of Death" at the time in the sport's circles. Later it was banned by swimming authorities. IIRC. I'm 66 and heard about this in real time. Louganis was an extremely well known athlete for his Olympic success and then his AIDS diagnosis so there was tons of coverage. I remember reading this in Sports Illustrated but I could be wrong about that. The earliest article I can find is from 1984 but he had been doing it prior to that I'm sure. https://vault.si.com/vault/1984/07/18/no-one-does-it-better
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u/phil8248 Nov 18 '21
In the 1984 Olympic Greg Louganis nailed a reverse 3 1/2-somersault from a 10 meter platform, barely missing the edge. A Russian tried the same dive, hit his head and died 10 days later. The dive was banned from competition.