TRAILER: Back On Board: Greg Louganis

Debuting Tuesday, August 4th on HBO.

TRAILER: To Russia With Love

From the press materials:

To Russia With Love, an EPIX Original Documentary about two generations of Olympic LGBT athletes, will make its world premiere on Wednesday, October 29 at 8PM ET. To Russia With Love examines human rights through the lens of LGBT athletes, with iconoclastic athlete and commentator Johnny Weir serving as the viewers’ guide into this world. The documentary examines the experiences of Olympic legends Billie Jean King and Greg Louganis as well as the next generation of LGBT athletes who participated in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Shooting worldwide in locations as diverse as Sochi, New York City, Calgary, Toronto, St. Petersburg and Moscow, the film follows these athletes from the ice to the slopes as they bear the brunt of constant media questioning about Russia’s anti-gay laws.

Greg Louganis: Sochi Athletes Should Publicly Thank Gay Supporters

Olympic legend Greg Louganis is opposed to a boycott of the Sochi Games, but he has an idea about how athletes could make a statement there without raising the ire of the IOC. Via USA Today:

Greg Louganis urged American Olympians on Friday to dedicate their performances at February's Sochi Games to their gay friends and relatives as a means of public but personal protest against Russian anti-gay laws. Louganis said as he understands the law, Olympic athletes in Sochi could potentially be in trouble for wearing rainbow pins in support of the LGBT movement. That, he said, is why he thinks athletes should publicly thank gay friends and relatives who have supported them in their road to the Olympics. "I don't see how the IOC can say anything about that, because it's personal, not political," Louganis said. "If you have a supportive aunt, uncle, cousin, friend who is gay, you don't win a gold medal by yourself. There is a team of people behind you. And to recognize those people is a way athletes can show their support of the LGBT community and what's going on in Russia."

Louganis says that he got hate mail from gay people after he first declared his opposition to a boycott.

Greg Louganis Got Married

People Magazine has the story:

Louganis, 53, married paralegal Johnny Chaillot, 52, Saturday evening at Geoffrey's in Malibu. "It was amazing because I have so many people from all facets of my life here tonight and they are all here and celebrating it is all wonderful," Louganis told PEOPLE immediately following the sunset ceremony. "I already feel different. The ceremony was so reflective and representative of who we are." The recent Splash coach and Chaillot began dating in 2012 after finding each other on the online dating site Match.com and became engaged almost exactly a year later on April 8.

In lieu of gifts, the couple asked for donations to charities.

Petition Of The Day

Athlete Ally has launched a petition campaign which demands that the International Olympic Committee chose Madrid as the host city of the 2020 Summer Games. Via press release:

On September 7 the IOC will choose the host city for the 2020 Olympic Games. Of the three finalists, Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul, one city shines above as LGBT friendly. And only one of the respective countries - Japan, Spain, and Turkey - has equality under the law. “The IOC has an opportunity in September, when the choice for the next Olympic site is chosen. Madrid is the one candidate who is very open and accepting,” Athlete Ally Advisory Board member and Olympic legend Greg Louganis told MSNBC. “Take the Olympics to a place where its ideals and the Olympic movement can thrive.” "The Olympic movement will be strengthened if the IOC takes this opportunity to make a powerful statement for equality with the selection of Madrid in 2020,” said Athlete Ally Founder and Executive Director Hudson Taylor. “It's important for the IOC to recognize how much support exists for this human rights issue.

Greg Louganis: Don't Boycott Sochi

Four-time Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis has penned a lengthy column in which he objects to any boycott of the Sochi Olympics.  An excerpt:

Boycotting sends the wrong message and will only harm the hard-working athletes set to compete in the 2014 Olympics, not the Russian government itself. I know from personal experience. My first Olympics I won Silver at age 16, and then in 1980, at the height of my diving career, President Jimmy Carter opted to boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow as a method of protesting the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. The toll on fellow athletes and me was devastating. We had trained our entire lives for that one moment. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to continue my diving career and return to compete and win two gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (an Olympics the Eastern Block counties boycotted) and repeat two gold medals in 1988 Olympics in Seoul. But, other athletes were not so lucky. Some of those who missed the 1980 games never had another chance to shine. This boycott hurt the wrong people, taking a toll on prominent athletes more than the country it targeted. I’m concerned the same would be true today. There are far too many athletes for whom the 2014 Sochi Olympics represents their only chance at success. A boycott will only hurt these athletes’ careers.

Louganis closes by noting that he is working with Athlete Ally and All Out to turn the Sochi Olympics into a "teachable moment" about the plight of LGBT people in Russia.

National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall Of Fame To Induct First Class Of Honorees

Tonight the National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall Of Fame will induct its first class of honorees in Chicago.

Dave Pallone, who was part of Chicago history when he umpired the first night game at Wrigley Field, is returning to Chicago to take part in another chapter of American sports history: His inclusion in the inaugural class of what organizers say is the first-of-its-kind National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame. On Friday night, Pallone will be honored in the first class of inductees that includes tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, and Jason Collins, who in April became the first active male professional athlete in a major team sport to publicly reveal he was gay. "It is a tremendous honor and ... I hope it gives young people and adults alike who happen to be LGBT and want to be in professional sports another example of why they should continue to strive for their dreams," Pallone said.

Being posthumously inducted is late pro baseball player Glenn Burke, who is credited with popularizing the high-five. Burke died of AIDS in 1995.