Tentoglou wins European long jump indoor title
Greek long-jumper Miltos Tentoglou added the indoor European championship Sunday to the outdoors title he won last year, winning with a national record of 8.38 meters, the best so far in the world in 2019.
Tentoglou, who will celebrate his 21st birthday in 15 days _ March 18 _ started with a disallowed jump but moved to the lead in his second try with an 8.12-meter effort. Soon after, however, Sweden's Thobias Nilsson Montler jumped 8.17 meters to take the lead. Tentoglou had a disallowed third effort, then, in his fourth, jumped 8.16 meters.
“I did not become anxious about not hitting the jump I wanted in the first tries,” Tentoglou said later. I was optimistic about the result. I stayed composed.” Not a mean feat, considering that great Greek long-jumpers in the not so recent past were plagued by an inability to control their approach, resulting in plentyof disallowed efforts for overstepping the launching pad.
It was Tentoglou's fifth effort that was the winning one. After Nilsson Montler failed to retake the lead, Tentoglou did not bother taking the final jump.
Among Greek athletes taking part at the European Championships, Voula Papachristou took second place in the women's triple jump with 14.50 meters and Costas Baniotis took silver in the men's high jump with a rather modest 2.26 meter effort.
Olympic and World champion Katerina Stefanidi and Nikol Kyriakopoulou compete in the women's pole vault and Kostas Douvalidis in the men's 60 meters hurdles later Sunday.
