2024-03-05 21:33:58
With a long jump of 8.22 m he climbed to the highest step of the podium. Like all great athletes, Miltos Tedoglou also started from somewhere low and some people helped them in the first steps, apart from their families. This particular athlete started from the small facilities of the DAK Grevena, from a club of a small town, the Gymnastic Union of Grevena, to then conquer the world with Olympic and world medals.
Miltos Tedoglou’s first supports were his family and the club that started the sport, GE Grevenon. And on days of national pride, like today, it is good to remember the invisible workers of sports, who work away from the public eye, to produce super-athletes like Miltos Tedoglou.
And Miltos never forgot his starting point. When he finds time, he goes to Grevena, trains with other athletes of the Grevena Sports Complex, he is still the kid next door, an anti-star and a genuine person of the Greek countryside.
Here is an excerpt from an earlier interview given to us by the president of the Gymnastic Union of Grevena, Yannis Papazisis, published in “FOS” and “Epirotiko Agona” about the first steps of Miltos Tentoglou in the DAC of Grevena, before spreading his wings and conquering the planet.
Mr. Papazisi, were you the president of the Gymnastic Union of Grevena when Miltos Tedoglou started sports?
I was then the superintendent of athletics. In provincial unions a few people do all the work. I was the administrator who welcomed Milto Tedoglou to the team. He was a normal kid like any other who wanted to do sports. Where was the idea that we had in front of us a future Olympian and world champion!
So you know his first athletic steps.
Yes, from the first moment until now when he reached very high I watch every step he took. Wherever our own children compete, we as an association are on their side. After Miltos started to have pan-Hellenic successes, to show that he is up for big things, we also went to matches abroad, where possible.
The story is known that he did parkour and then coach Vangelis Papanikos brought him to track. Do you know anything more to tell us?
Miltos did parkour at the Greveni stadium with a friend, who is now in Germany, but they remain close. Our track and field coach Vangelis Papanikos noticed him for his jumping abilities while doing parkour. He approached him more to tell him that what he is doing jumping from wall to wall is dangerous. It is preferable to do it in the dugout of the field. This is how this great athlete began to deal with length. He liked it from the beginning and remained committed to this sport.
When did he compete?
He took part in the first pageant games. With a little training, because then he had started, Papanikos showed his trust and chose him to compete. Although he did not do any special training, he took second place in the first Panhellenic Games. From then on it didn’t stop. It had a rapid development. He was a good kid, with his own style, as he is today. He went to the games comfortably, he was not stressed, he showed a carefree person but with full awareness of his mission and dedicated to what he was doing. He lay in his Bermuda shorts on the grass, as if nothing had happened, and waited for his turn. He went straight, jumped and set a pan-Hellenic record. He did not have the conventional style of athletes. Miltos was a distinct personality from a young age, he had his own style. He remains the same even now, unaffected by his massive successes.
He obviously had confidence in himself
From a young age he had a sense of superiority, without insulting opponents. He believed that he can achieve a lot. As you say, he had confidence, confidence in himself.
Seeing his first steps in sports, did you expect him to have this development?
I also come from the field of athletics. We did track and field with Vangelis Papanikos since we were little. I’ve seen football, basketball, I watch the whole spectrum of sports. But what I saw with Tedoglou I had never seen before. He did amazing things when he was still a student of the Grevena High School. In the first high school he did 7.15 in length, the next year he took it to 7.70. While studying in the third Lyceum, he jumped at 8.19, in Papaflessia in Kalamata, and reached the participation limit in the Rio Olympics in 2016. He was the youngest Greek athlete who went to those Olympics, he had just stepped on his 18 years. While he had a limit of 7.70 in Grevena at that time, he told us in the gym that he can reach the limit for Rio. We didn’t believe it, because it had to cover a difference of about half a meter. He said it and he did it. He obviously knew the energy he had inside him and that he could produce much more. Miltos Tedoglou is an athlete-phenomenon. In the first four years of his involvement in sports, he had reached the world record for teenagers.
Did the great successes of Tedoglou contribute to other children coming to sports? I mean for the area of Grevena.
Big athletes are always role models for smaller athletes. I told you before that when Miltos comes to Grevena, he always comes to the club’s training sessions and talks, hugs the children who play sports. We have as a club a succession of successes. This year we won gold and a silver medal at the Panhellenic Games. We have one hundred and sixty children in our group who do classical sports. We cannot meet the needs of more children. Miltos certainly helped in this part. We live with him an unprecedented experience. It is something that happens for the first time in our lives. We will never experience this again. To be next to a great athlete at the Olympic Games, Pan-European and World Athletics Championships.
Watching some videos, I find that Miltos Tedoglou has never been cut off from the city, he hasn’t forgotten his old friends in the hangouts and always thanks his fellow citizens for the love they show him.
Grevena is his home, his place, his family. When he’s in town, he talks to people, takes pictures, comes to the stadium. The same Miltos we knew from childhood is still the same now.
I asked you why the glory, the publicity, the massive acceptance of the world for a 24 year old kid is….Sirens. All this needs proper management.
I’ll put it this way, Miltos Tedoglou is an anti-star. He is a simple and popular child. When he took the Olympic medal and Grevena was delirious with joy and pride, Miltos had asked for a modest reception ceremony. He did not lose the modesty and simplicity he had before he made the big hits. People stop him on the street, talk to him, he didn’t snub anyone.