For just the second time in the modern Olympics, Cyprus has an Olympic medal winner, from the same source as the first one!

Cyprus has a very long history at the Olympic Games. As part of Ancient Greece, Cyprus competed in the original ancient Olympics, and produced its fair share of champions against other Greek regions and islands. Over 2,000 years later, Cyprus became an independent country in 1960, and immediately started competing in the modern edition, established in 1896 when Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics. Unfortunately, as a small country, Cyprus usually comes up emptyhanded.

That all changed in 2012, when Pavlos Kontides, a young sailor from Limassol, won Cyprus’ first medal in over 2,000 years in the men’s laser competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and he’s done it again this year. Kontides is now 34 years old, he came close to another medal in the previous Olympics in Tokyo, but placed 4th. In what is now known as the men’s dinghy, Kontides has made sure that Cyprus would get on at least one medal stand in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The sailing events have been held in Marseille on the southern coast of France. Kontides was joined on the medal stand by bronze medalist Stefano Pescheira from Peru, and the gold medalist, Matt Wearn from Australia.

Andrew Mantzas
Twitter: @MantzasNC