Ron O’Brieninfinity88, perhaps the most successful diving coach in United States history, who guided Greg Louganis to Olympic gold in two events at the Summer Games in 1984 and again in 1988, died on Nov. 19 at his home in Naples, Fla. He was 86.
His son, Tim, confirmed the death.
A champion diver at Ohio State University, O’Brien coached eight United States Olympic teams and also coached at two universities and a number of aquatic clubs. His divers won more than 300 medals at major domestic and international competitions, including 12 at the Olympics.
His most illustrious student was Louganis, a diver of almost unparalleled skill.
“I don’t think anybody in any sport is any closer to perfection than Greg is — Carl Lewis, Mary Lou Retton, I don’t care,” O’Brien told the New York Times columnist Dave Anderson in 1984. “People talk about 10s; in one meet, he had 35 or 40 of them. In his career, he’s had more than 100 of them, probably 200.”
O’Brien began coaching Louganis in 1978, two years after he won a silver medal in the 10-meter platform at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.
“I was an instrument of his creation,” Louganis said in an interview. “He recognized that I wasn’t competitive, that I was a performer, and he devised games to challenge me and keep me engaged.”
After losing the chance to compete at the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow when the United States boycotted them over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Louganis won gold medals in the platform and three-meter springboard at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (which the Soviet Union boycotted in retaliation) and again at the 1988 Seoul Games. He was the first male diver to win the two events in consecutive Olympics.
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