'Sharing Miracles' Television Program to Feature Olympic Gold Medal-Winner Gre...( WASHINGTON July 1 -- Beginning J...),Health

WASHINGTON, July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Beginning July 6, Sharing Miracles -- a 30-minute public affairs television program that tells the compelling and inspirational stories of real patients -- will feature four-time Olympic Gold Medal-winner Greg Louganis. Also on July 6, the program will debut in Los Angeles on KCOP-TV at 10 am. Sharing Miracles now shows on 137 television stations across the United States.

Diver Greg Louganis won the hearts of sports fans worldwide in 1984, when he won the Gold Medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics for both the 3 meter springboard and the 10 meter platform. He solidified his reputation as the world's best diver by repeating those wins at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea, despite hitting his head on the diving board during the preliminary rounds. With a resulting concussion -- and with tens of millions of people watching -- he completed the preliminaries and went on to repeat the same dive during the finals. With almost perfect scores, he clinched the Gold Medal. As a result of his stellar performance throughout the Olympics, he was named 1988's ABC Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year.

For years, his name was associated with the Olympics and with his ability to overcome the odds against him. This especially rang true in 1995, when Louganis announced in his autobiography, "Breaking the Surface," that he is HIV positive. Since then, he has fought his battle against the disease with the same grace and strength that he showed in competition.

Speaking of his initial diagnosis -- just months before the Olympics in 1988 -- he says, "When I was first diagnosed, HIV was thought of as a death sentence, so I was going to do the honorable thing, go back home, lock myself in my house, and wait to die." His doctor told him to do otherwise: "He encouraged me to stay in training. He said that was probably the healthiest thing for me to do for myself -- and I was very thankful for that, because I was
'/>"/>