The Greek Olympic team has won its first medals in the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Stefanos Ntouskos was the first Greek athlete to win Gold in the men’s single skull rowing competition. He had finished 11th at the 2019 World Championships and was an underdog in the Olympic competition.
Miltiadis Tentoglou also won the gold medal in the men’s long jump in the most dramatic fashion as he leapt 8.41 meters in his final attempt to snatch the gold medal from Cuba’s Juan Miguel Echevarria.
Tentoglou was the world leader coming into Tokyo with an 8.60m leap at a domestic competition in May, but struggled to find his form and was outside the medals positions as he hit the runway for the final time.
He hit the board perfectly to match the leading mark, with his second-best jump of 8.15m assuring him the gold by edging out the Cuban’s 8.09m.
Eleftherios Petrounias, winner of gold medal in rings at the 2016 Rio Games, took the bronze in the men’s gymnastics rings. Dubbed the “lord of rings,” Petrounias is one of the world’s most celebrated gymnasts in the world with numerous world championships.
For Petrounias, the road to Tokyo was much more challenging than that of his fellow athletes. Since his gold in Rio, he had surgery on his left shoulder and only qualified for the Tokyo Olympics just a month before the start of the Games.
After winning the bronze, Petrounias declared that this was not the end of the road in his career.
“This third place finish is not the end of my career, which I want to finish with a gold medal [at the 2024 Paris Olympics].”
Petrounias won the gold at the 2016 Rio di Janeiro Olympics champion, is three-time World champion (2015, 2017, and 2018), and is a six-time European medalist on the still rings (five gold and one bronze).
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