Miltiadis Tentoglou

Miltiadis Tentoglou was born in Thessaloniki on 18 March 1998[7] to a family of Asia Minor origin.[8] He grew up in the town of Grevena, where he spent his childhood and teenage years.[9]

Until 15, he had no single experience with the field and track. But, in his teenage years he was practicing parkour as a hobby. He started athletics completely by accident at the age of 15, at the urging of the Greek athletics coach, Vangelis Papanikos, who had observed him doing parkour in the stadium bleachers at the Grevena stadium. Papanikos was the first person to recognise Tentoglou's exceptional natural talent and his great physical agility, and he actually was his first coach.[10]

Tentoglou then, in 2017, teamed up with recognised Greek-Bulgarian coach, Georgi Pomashki, who is his current coach.[11][12] Pomashki is the coach who led Tentoglou to the top.

Miltiadis Tentoglou gained his first international experience at the age of 17 at the 2015 World Under-18 Championships in Athletics held in Cali, Colombia, where he placed fifth with a jump of 7.66 metres.

He made an impression in May 2016 when he soared at 8.19 metres in Kalamata to break the Greek national U20 record.[13] Two months later, he won the silver medal at the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland for a leap of 7.91 m, behind Cuban Maykel Massó (8.00 m). The following month, Tentoglou was one of the youngest members of Hellenic expedition at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he was, however, eliminated in the qualifications (7.64 m).

In June 2017 at the Greek Athletics Championships in Patras, Tentoglou improved his national U20 record by landing at 8.30 metres.[13] In July, he went on to claim a gold at the European U20 Championships held in Grosseto, Italy, jumping 8.07 m.

From that point, major titles kept piling up for Miltiadis, culminating in him winning the 2020 Summer Olympic crown in the Japan capital Tokyo, where he soared at 8.41 metres to win on countback over Cuba's Juan Miguel Echevarría, with Massó third at 8.21 m. He has won five consecutive European titles: at Berlin 2018, where he became the youngest Greek man to win a continental gold, at indoor Glasgow 2019, where he set a Greek indoor record, at indoor Toruń 2021, at Munich 2022, where he set a championship record in the process,[14] and at indoor Istanbul 2023, where he became the first man in history to claim three successive long jump titles at the European Indoors.[15] Only Hans Baumgartner has also won three, but not straight, European indoor titles.

In May 2021 at a meeting in Athens, Tentoglou landed at 8.60 metres, becoming the third-best European performer of all time, behind Robert Emmiyan and compatriot Louis Tsatoumas.[16]

At the 2022 World Indoor Championships held in Belgrade, Serbia, he improved his Greek indoor record with a jump of 8.55 metres to convincingly take the title.[4] Tentoglou finished second at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon that year, however, with a leap of 8.32 m, behind China's Wang Jianan (8.36 m).

• Miltiadis Tentoglou at World Athletics
• Miltiadis Tentoglou at Olympedia
• Miltiadis Tentoglou at Olympics.com
• Miltos Tentoglou at the Hellenic Olympic Committee
• Official Tentoglou Family Website