Elina Tzengko Bags Another Gold for Greece at European Championships

Nineteen-year-old Elina Tzengko dominated the women’s javelin final at the European Championships on Saturday to win gold for Greece.

Tzengko won the contest by almost four meters with a personal best of 65.81 meters on her second attempt.

Serbia’s Adriana Vilagoš won silver with 62.01 meters while the 41-year-old veteran Barbora Špotáková bagged an emotional bronze for the Czech Republic in the stadium where her international career began twenty years ago.

Elina Tzengko was born in Athens on September 2, 2002 to Albanian immigrants, who came to Greece in search of a better life.

Her father was a policeman in Albania, and her mother was a teacher. As she has emphasized in a recent interview, her father worked in construction when he arrived in Greece, and her mother cleaned homes.

“I want to succeed in sports and help my family,” she has said. “I have promised my mother not to do this job again.”

Her sporting career started at a young age with heptathlon and pentathlon, but the javelin won her over.

Elina Tzengko brings Greece’s gold tally to 4

Greece has already won four gold and one silver medal on field and track events at the European Championships that take place in Munich, Germany.

Earlier track athlete Antigoni Ntrismpioti won her second gold medal in race walking.

Ntrismpioti (pronounced “Drisbioti”), 38, had already won a gold in the women’s 35 km race walk on Tuesday and clinched her double victory with the 20 km race walk in Munich with 1:29:03 timing.

Olympic gold medalist and 2021 champion Miltiadis Tentoglou retained his European long jump title and set a new championship record with his 8.52-meter jump on his fourth attempt on Tuesday.

Three-time Olympian Katerina Stefanidi won the silver medal for Greece with a 4.75-meter vault on Wednesday to become the first pole vaulter with four European medals.