Nikolaidis, two-time Olympic taekwondo silver medallist, dies
Alexandros Nikolaidis, a tae kwon do athlete who won two silver medals in the heavyweight division in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, died Friday, three days short of his 43rd birthday.
He was suffering from NUT, a rare and very aggressive form of cancer.
In a Facebook post that went up after his death, he said he had been ill over the past two years and had undergone surgery on his lungs. In his post, he said he wanted his two Olympic medals auctioned off and the proceeds given to a children’s welfare agency or charity of his family’s choice.
Nikolaidis had also competed in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, where he broke his leg, and in 2012, where he was the flag-bearer for the Greek team, but was eliminated in the first round. He also won gold (2008) and bronze (2010) in the European Championships as well as two golds in Junior European and gold in Junior World Championships in the 1990s.
Later in life, Nikolaidis got into politics; he was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2019 election for the European Parliament with the left-wing SYRIZA party and, since September 2020, he had been one of the party’s three deputy spokespersons. In his farewell post he thanked SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras for his friendship.
“In his short life, Alexandros achieved more than any of us,” Tsipras posted online.
Nikolaidis is survived by his wife, their children, aged 5 and 2, and a son from his first marriage.
