Theodoros Cheilidis is the athlete who “gifted” Greece its first medal at the Paris Olympic Games!
The 27-year-old athlete triumphed in the repechage against Tristan Mosakhlishvili with a score of 1-0 and secured third place in Judo in the -90 kg category.
The 27-year-old judoka, ranked 15th in the world, claimed the 42nd bronze medal in the history of Greece, and it is worth noting that this is the 122nd medal that our country celebrates in the modern history of the Games.
Cheilidis’s Journey to the Bronze Medal
Cheilidis won in the first round against Robert Florentino from the Dominican Republic, and in the next round, he eliminated Serbian Nemanja Maindov, one of the top-ranked judokas.
In the quarterfinals, he was defeated by Maxim – Gael Abu, but he had another chance to win a medal through participation in the repechage.
This is Greece’s third medal in judo, following the gold medal won by Ilias Iliadis in Athens in 2004 and the bronze medal in 2012 in London.
Who is Theodoros Cheilidis
Theodoros Cheilidis was born on August 5, 1996, in North Ossetia, Russia, to Greek Nikolai Cheilidis. He has one brother, George, and a sister, Marina.
In 2019, he graduated with a degree in Global Economics from the State University of North Ossetia (RUS).
According to his profile on the official website of the Olympic Games, he enjoys history, video games, and poetry.
His Career
A representative of the Russian judo and sambo school. He started practicing judo at the age of 15 in the city of Vladikavkaz because, as he stated in an interview, “I wanted to try something new.”
Initially, he participated in classical wrestling classes, but later he began to achieve success in sambo wrestling and judo.
He worked with the coaching team of Alik Akhpolatovich Bekuzarov. In 2017, he reached the finals of the Russian judo championship and won the title of Russian vice-champion.
Since 2018, he has represented Greece in international competitions. In April 2018, he made his debut with the Greek National Team at the Grand Prix in Georgia in Tbilisi under the name Theodoros Cheilidis.
At the 2018 European Championships held in Israel, he won the bronze medal in the weight category up to 90 kg.
In April 2022, at the European Championships in Bulgaria, in the weight category up to 90 kg, he repeated his success and won the bronze medal again.
He Dreamed of an Olympic Medal
On his profile on the Olympic Games page, we read that his dream was to win a medal at the Olympic Games.
And he achieved it with the blue and white!
On July 31 at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Theodoros won the bronze medal, defeating Spanish athlete Tristan Mosakhlishvili in the match for third place.