On Sunday, the last day of the European Athletics Championships, Greece was on track to score its best-ever place in the medal count, following the wins of Antigoni Ntrismpioti and Elina Tzenko.
Track athlete Ntrismpioti made history winning her second gold medal in race walking at the European Championships in Munich on Saturday.
With a personal best time of 1:29.03, she was crowned champion at the 20km race, just four days after winning the gold medal in the 35km race walking event.
In the second place was Katarzyna Zdziebło, 25, from Poland and the bronze medal was won by Germany’s Saskia Feige, also 25 years old.
Ntrismpioti, 38, is the first Greek female athlete to achieve a double at European Championships.
In Saturday’s race, the Greek athlete from Karditsa was behind the leading group and 10th at the 10km-mark, before accelerating around the 17th km and moving ahead of the pack.
“The other girls were accelerating and then slowing down. I retained a steady pace, stayed patient and then being rested I could pick up my pace,” Ntrismpioti said of her strategy.
Triumph for Tzengko
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Elina Tzengko became Europe’s youngest javelin thrower champion on Saturday, thanks to a second-round personal best of 65.81m.
Tzengko – a daughter of Albanian immigrants who was born in Greece in 2002, and gained Greek citizenship in 2018 – achieved Greece’s third–ever gold at the European Championships in javelin for women, after Anna Verouli (1982) and Mirela Maniani (2002).
She led from start to finish, opening with 60.82m and following up with her best of the night before concluding with 64.57m.
Hungary’s Reka Szilagyi won second place with a second-round throw of 60.57m and the Czech Republic’s world record-holder Barbora Spotakova, 41, secured a podium spot with her second effort of 60.31m.