WITH A SECOND-ROUND effort of 27-10 (8.48), Miltiádis Tentóglou added to his burgeoning collection of medals by defending his Olympic LJ title.
The Greek, who is also the reigning world and European champion, was put under some early pressure when Italy’s teenage talent Mattia Furlani opened with 27-4½ (8.34), just 4 centimeters shy of his 27-6 (8.38) WJR when he got the European silver behind Tentóglou in June.
Tentóglou responded with 27-1¾ (8.27) on his first attempt. In the second stanza, Furlani landed at 27-¾ (8.25) before Tentóglou mustered his energies and flew out to 27-10 (8.48) to take the lead. That proved to be the winning distance.
Later in the second round, Jamaica’s 3-time NCAA champion Wayne Pinnock landed at 27-5¼ (8.36) to overtake Furlani and move up to 2nd.
None of the three eventual medalists improved over the remaining four rounds but the competition was not short of entertainment.
Tentóglou put together jumps of 27-¼ (8.24), 27-5¼ (8.36) and 27-3¼ (8.31) in rounds 3, 4 and 5 before fouling the very last jump of the night with the gold already won while Furlani had another jump of 27-4½ in the 5th round to scare Pinnock.
Back-to-back titles for Tentóglou mean that he joins a very select group of repeat winners with only Carl Lewis having more consecutive wins with his four-in-a-row streak between 1984 and 1996.
“It’s a great achievement. I am very happy, but very tired. My distance was not bad, not good,” Tentóglou assessed.
“I have a special personal reason that I wanted to jump 8.75 meters, but today it was impossible to jump so far. It was not the best conditions. The wind was difficult at times.
“I didn’t think my jump was going to be enough because the other guys are very talented and capable. I was pushing throughout to do more.”
One of Tentóglou’s “personal reasons” for going for a big distance is that despite all his honors and accolades, he still doesn’t have the Greek NR to his name. That belongs to Loúis Tsátoumas and his 28-5 (8.66) from 2007.
Tentóglou’s best is currently half-an-inch shy of that mark, the 28-4½ (8.65) he spanned to win the European title in June.
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