Honour where honour is due: News of the Olympic Champion Kostis Tsiklitiras from Pylos
Keywords:
Kostis Tsiklitiras, Olympic victor, modern victor statue, Pylos, Cultural Club of Pylos NAVARINOAbstract
Kostis Tsiklitiras, Olympic champion in the standing long jump in 1912, died in 1913 at the young age of 25 years old. He was one of the rare Olympic victors in the sport of track and field of modern Greece. His dilapidated childhood home at Pylos/Messenia (Greece) was renovated after a long struggle of the Cultural Club of Pylos NAVARINO; the club fought for many years against the later owner, the National Bank of Greece. Today, visitors can witness the erected bronze victor statue in the garden of this residency, as with the custom for Olympic victors in antiquity. The history of the Tsiklitiras family is known up until his great-grandfather, who emigrated to the United States of America and returned in 1821 to participate in the Greek war of independence.