Petrounias is aiming for his third Olympic medal in the hoops today, while Tedoglou will take the first jump ahead of tomorrow’s long final
Miltos Tedoglou will appear in the pit of the Stade de France at 12 noon – perhaps a little groggy – determined to “clear” the qualification to the long final with a single jump as far as possible beyond 8 m. Lefteris Petrounias will step the Bercy carpets at 4pm and hopes to leave adorned with precious metal two or three hours later. Tedoglou can be in the stands, like several other members of the Greek delegation. The great Sunday of Greek sports dawned with two emblematic ambassadors on the ramparts.
Judoka Thodoris Tselidis, who opened the medal dance, may have been “anonymous” before the Games, Apostolos Christou known only to swimming experts, and Fitsiu, Kontou, Papakonstantinou, Gaidatzis unknown oars among strangers, but today the baton passes to hands of the famous. “We are lucky to have seen Petrounias in action on the rings so many times over the years,” Eurosport’s commentators said in the qualifying broadcast. “Tedoglou looks set to follow in the footsteps of Carl Lewis” writes the World Association of Athletics Federations in the announcement of the long jump. Two sports events that write the history of the Olympic Games, two medals waiting for the next flight to Athens.
For Tedoglou, who was an 18-year-old boy in Rio when Petrounias climbed to the top step of the podium, it will be his second: only Lewis has defended his Olympic long title. For Petrounias himself, who will turn 34 in November, the third: a record in the Olympic history of hoops. The two were from the start the strongest standards of the Greek mission for a medal here in Paris. Tomorrow morning it is Katerina Stefanidi’s turn to take the stage.
The most likely scenario for L. Petrounias, experts say, is to revive the scene of Tokyo in Bercy: a Chinese “double” at the top and Ellinopoulos next to them on the podium. He will need to improve on his mediocre qualifying performance, however, with France’s Ait Said playing at home and threatening to break the trio, along with Turkey’s excellent Adem Asil. Petrounias will perform his high-difficulty program right after the two Chinese Xingyuan Zhu and Yang Liu.
“If we do well, the trio of medals will close there,” promises his coach Dimitris Raftis. “Lefteris is in an excellent psychological state. Calm, cool and experienced, he knows well what he has to do to get on the podium. In the final we will try for the maximum”. Belgian Quillet, Armenian Davitian and British Hepworth complete the final eight.
In the final of the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Miltos Tedoglou twice landed at 8.65m and another three times over 8.40m. Only two of his competitors have come close to 8.5m this year. The Swiss decathlete Simon Ehammer cleared 8.42m in the qualifier of the same event, while Jamaica’s Pinnock, who came close to beating ours at the 2023 World Championships, has 8.40m.
The “dark horse” of the competition is the multi-talented Mattia Furlani who has the potential but not the experience. The 19-year-old Italian jumped 8.38m in the Rome final and threatened Tedoglou. 8.65m he sees for now only in his dreams. If the day after tomorrow Miltos launches that far again (with the help of the “rubber” runway, which is the same as that of Olympikos), he is not going to lose to anyone. With a little luck, he may even break the… haunted Panhellenic record of Louis Chattouma, the 8.66m from the Papaflessias of 2007. This is the last fort that resists the amazing Tedoglou.
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