Olympic champion Miltos Tentoglou delivered what may be the finest long jump series of his career at the Greek Athletics Championships in Volos, twice matching the national record in a single competition and further cementing his status as one of the sport’s all-time greats.
A historic series for Tentoglou
Competing on home turf, the two-time Olympic gold medalist delivered the finest series of his career at the Greek Championships in Volos, recording three jumps beyond 8.60m, opening with a wind-legal 8.52m before soaring out to a wind-assisted 8.66m in the second round. He then produced an even more remarkable follow-up, as Tentoglou matched that distance with a legal 1.0m/s following wind in round three, improving his PB by one centimeter and equaling the national record set by Louis Tsatoumas in 2007.
The Thessaloniki native wasn’t finished there. Tentoglou moved to joint 13th on the world all-time list and joint third among Europeans, completing his series with another huge leap of 8.64m in the final round, meaning he produced three jumps beyond 8.60 meters in a single competition, an extraordinary display of consistency at the highest level.
Speaking after the competition, Tentoglou hinted that even bigger things may be coming this season. “My last jump was the best of the competition,” he said. “However, in my mind I wanted to do something better.”
Building on a record-filled season
The Volos performance caps a remarkable few weeks for the 28-year-old, who won his fourth Balkan Athletics Championships title at the very same Panthessaliko Stadium venue just weeks earlier, clearing 8.36 meters despite a headwind to break a championship record that had stood since 1979.
Tentoglou has long been the standard-bearer of Greek track and field. He remains the only long jumper since Carl Lewis to win back-to-back Olympic titles, having triumphed in Tokyo and Paris, and he also holds the Greek indoor record. Domestically, his dominance is virtually unmatched — the Volos result added to a collection of national titles that spans nearly a decade of competitive excellence.
Greek long jump record technically “equaled”
Louis Tsatoumas’s 8.66-meter Greek record had stood for nearly two decades, since 2007—a mark widely regarded as one of the most enduring standards in Greek athletics. That Tentoglou reached that exact distance not once but twice in the same competition, then followed it with another 8.64-meter effort, underscores just how close he is to redefining Greek long jump history outright.
As of today the record is technically “equaled” rather than broken, since Tsatoumas’s mark still stands as the official national best on a technicality of wind conditions.
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