By Cliff Dunn

MIAMI, FL – When ABC kicks off the fourteenth season of Dancing With the Stars, Olympic swimming champion Greg Louganis hopes to go for the gold as a member of the show’s dancing cast.
Louganis, an Olympic gold medalist who competed in the 1976, 1984, and 1988 games, says the hit series has broken many conventions, with openly gay stars Lance Bass, Carson Cressley, and Louis Amstel appearing as contestants,  and Chaz Bono breaking the transgender ceiling last season. The next, he says, should be to include an HIV- positive cast member.

“I don’t mind being the sacrificial lamb,” Louganis joked. “There are so many important issues that relate to our community, I would like to use the show as a vehicle to draw attention to them.”
Louganis cites ongoing awareness of HIV/AIDS, and the national focus this year on anti-bullying campaigns that reach LGBT youths, as well as the suicides in recent months of LGBT teens. “These deaths are so tragic,” Louganis notes, “and we need to come together to fight bullying in every shape and form it takes.”

Louganis attended the University of Miami from 1978 to 1981 on a diving scholarship. He competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, placing second in the tower event. In 1978, he won his first world title in the tower dive. He won two world diving titles in 1982, and in 1984, at the Los Angeles Olympics, Louganis won gold medals in the springboard and tower events.

In 1988, Louganis tested positive for HIV. That year, competing in the Seoul Olympics—where he repeated his double-gold medal win—Louganis hit his head on the swimming pool springboard during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2½ pike.  He suffered a concussion but completed the preliminaries despite his injury, earning the gold medal. His comeback earned him the title of ABC’s Wide World of Sports 1988 “Athlete of the Year.”

Fans of the Olympian have set up a Facebook page, “We Want Greg Louganis on Dancing with the Stars,” and POZ magazine has likewise launched a campaign to encourage readers to contact the show and get Louganis to trip the light fantastic. The gold medalist can also be followed on Twitter @greglouganis.

“People can also contact the show’s official page and let the producers know they want to see me on the program,” Louganis said. “[Writer] Armistead Maupin suggested that if I’m selected for this season, I should dance with a male partner, which would be timely in light of marriage equality being so much in the national awareness this year.”

Dancing With the Stars season  14 premieres on Monday, March 19 at 8 p.m.