Three new sports icons will grace Wheaties cereal boxes, including Olympic diver Greg Louganis, an LGBT rights activist whom sparked a petition which tens of thousands of people supported.
The General Mills breakfast cereal, known for featuring prominent athletes on its bright orange packaging, announced Monday that four-time gold medalist Greg Louganis will join swimmer Janet Evans and hurdler Edwin Moses on three separate boxes starting next month.
More than 43,000 people, inspired by an HBO documentary about the diver, had signed an online petition to get General Mills to belatedly feature the 56-year-old Louganis, who they say was overlooked for the honor at the height of his career.
Louganis, who came out as gay publicly in 1994 and revealed he was HIV-positive a year later, has said that homophobia likely blocked him from being featured on a Wheaties box after the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, the New York Times reports. “This means so much more than it would have back then,” he told the newspaper. “Getting it now means people will see me as a whole person — a flawed person who is gay, H.I.V.-positive, with all the other things I’ve been through.”
The boxes will be in stores from May through at least the summer, according to the Times.
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