Miltiadis Tentoglou won the men’s long jump in the most dramatic
fashion as he leapt 8.41 metres 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.
“What an incredible competition. What an incredible jump, the last jump,” the Greek said after winning his country’s first ever long jump gold.
Eleftherios Petrounias meanwhile won a Tokyo Olympics bronze medal for Greece in the men’s rings final .
His score of 15.200 saw him place third after Liu Yang from China claimed a gold medal with 15.500 and You Hao from China won silver with 15.300.
This is Petrounias’ second Olympic medal in his legendary career
The third medal for Greece was won by Stefanos Ntouskos with a surprise victory in the men’s single sculls.
That was Greece’s first-ever Olympic rowing gold.
The Greek rower broke the Olympic record with a time of 6min 40.45sec – beating the previous best set by New Zealander Mahé Drysdale by almost a second – as he overcame two-time world champion Kjetil Borch of Norway.
