Miltiadis Tentoglou

Miltiadis "Miltos" Tentoglou ( ; born 18 March 1998 ) is a Greek long jumper who has won two Olympic gold medals, one World Championship gold medal and four European Championship gold medals. He is regarded as one of the greatest long jumpers of all time, having won the sport’s major international titles.

He won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 2024 Paris Olympics, and the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest. In 2022, Tentoglou became the World Indoor champion jumping the current Greek indoor record of 8.55 metres, which places him sixth best indoor on the world all-time list, and took silver at the outdoor World Championships. He is a seven-time European champion, winning a record four consecutive outdoor titles in 2018, 2022, 2024 and 2026 and a record three successive men's indoor titles between 2019-2023. He also won the long jump discipline four times at the European Athletics Team Championships.

He had been a silver medallist at the 2016 World Under-20 Championships and won gold at the 2017 European U20 and 2019 European U23 Championships. Tentoglou was also 2022 Diamond League Champion at the event. He is the Greek indoor record holder, and has won 16 national long jump titles, he won 9 national long jump titles outdoor and 7 indoor. He was named the Greek Male Athlete of the Year, for the years 2022 and 2023. He was also named the BTA Best Balkan Athlete of the Year for 2024.

Early life Tentoglou was born in Thessaloniki on 18 March 1998. His paternal great grandfather was a Greek refugee from Anatolia. He grew up in the town of Grevena, where he spent his childhood and teenage years.

Until 15, he had no experience in track and field. In his teenage years his hobby was parkour. He started athletics at the age of 15, at the urging of the Greek athletics coach, Vangelis Papanikos, who had watched him doing parkour in the stadium bleachers at the Grevena stadium, had recognised Tentoglou's natural talent and physical agility and became his first coach. In 2017, Tentoglou teamed up with Greek-Bulgarian coach, Georgi Pomashki, who is his current coach.

Career 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.

In May 2016, he jumped 8.19 metres in Kalamata to break the Greek national U20 record. 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. and at indoor Istanbul 2023, where he became the first man in history to claim three successive long jump titles at the European Indoors. 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 fourth-best European performer of all time, behind Robert Emmiyan, Sebastian Bayer and compatriot Louis Tsatoumas.

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

In Glasgow, at the 2024 World Indoors Championships, Tentoglou secured his second world indoor title in a very close contest. With just one centimetre separating the three medalists, it matched the 2012 edition for the closest ever World Indoor Championships long jump final. Tentoglou won on tiebreaker with jumps of 8.22 m and 8.19 m, beating Mattia Furlani, who had jumps of 8.22 m and 8.10 m, and Carey McLeod, who jumped 8.21 m.

In June 2024, at the European Athletics Championships, he extended his championship record by jumping 8.65 m twice, taking the gold medal again and setting a new PB.

In August 2024, at Paris's Olympic Games he maintained his Olympic title with a leap of 8.48 m, making him the only jumper after Carl Lewis with a back-to-back Olympic gold medal in the long jump.

In September 2024, he spoke out against the World Athletics Federation's intention to replace the wooden jumping board with a take off zone. He said if this change will take place, he will retire.

In July 2025, he won the gold medal at the 77th Balkan Athletics Championships.

In July 2026, Tentoglou delivered the finest series of his career at the Greek Championships in Volos, recording three jumps beyond 8.60 m. He opened with a wind-legal 8.52 m before jumping a wind-assisted 8.66 m (2.7 m/s) in the second round. Tentoglou then matched that distance with a legal 1.0 m/s tailwind in round three, improving his PB by one centimetre and equalling the national record set by Louis Tsatoumas in 2007. Tentoglou, who moved to joint 13th on the world all-time list and joint third among Europeans, completed his series with another leap of 8.64 m (0.7 m/s) in the final round.

Tentoglou won the gold medal at the 2026 European Championships with a jump of 8.44m. It was his fourth European outdoor title.

Honours - International competitions At Istanbul 2023, Tentoglou claimed his fifth consecutive European title.

Circuit wins and titles

2021 (1): Monaco Herculis 2022 (5): Rabat Meeting International Mohammed VI d'Athlétisme, Oslo Bislett Games, Stockholm BAUHAUS-galan, Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial (MR), Zürich Weltklasse 2023 (2): Meeting de Paris, Weltklasse Zürich 2024 (1): Lausanne Athletissima 2026 (4): Xiamen Diamond League (MR, ), Monaco Herculis (MR, ), Lausanne Athletissima, Weltklasse Zürich

National titles Greek Athletics Championships Long jump (9): 2017 (8.30 m ), 2018 (8.24 m), 2019 (8.22 m), 2021 (8.48 m), 2022, 2023 (8.38 m), 2024 (8.42 m/wind: +2.3), 2025 (8.12 m), 2026 (8.66 m =) Greek Indoor Athletics Championships Long jump (7): 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025