Georgios Roubanis (; 15 August 1929 – 11 February 2025) was a Greek

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a #bar, bar. Pole jumping was already practiced by the ...

er. He was born in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

, Greece, and his family hails from

Stemnitsa Stemnitsa () is a mountain village in the municipal unit of Trikolonoi, Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. It was the seat of the former municipality Trikolonoi. Stemnitsa is a traditional settlement and is considered one of the most beautiful vill ...

. He competed at three

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

. He was the elder brother of Aristeidis. He was named the 1956

Greek Athlete of the Year The PSAT Sports Awards () are the annual sports awards that are issued by the Panhellenic Sports Press Association (PSAT). The awards are given to the year's top performing individual athletes, in the form of Athlete of the Year awards, and also t ...

. At the

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan after 57 years. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, E ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, he won a bronze medal in the pole vault, as he scored 4.50 m (Greek record at the time), on 26 November 1956. In order to attend the Melbourne event, Roubanis lost a semester of his studies at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

in the United States. He abandoned athletics in 1961. After studying political economics, he got his master's degree in local self-government. He had worked in the U.S. for 5 years as a management consultant, for a movie company. He had also set up an advertising company and a printing plant. In sports, he served as the president of the Panhellenic Association of

Calisthenics Calisthenics (American English) or callisthenics (British English) () is a form of strength training that utilizes an individual's body weight as resistance to perform multi-joint, compound movements with little or no equipment. Calisthenics sol ...

and founded several other associations. Roubanis died in Athens on 11 February 2025, at the age of 95.

References

External links

* * * * * * * 1929 births 2025 deaths Athletes from Tripoli, Greece Greek male pole vaulters Athletes (track and field) at the 1952 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1956 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1960 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Greece Olympic bronze medalists for Greece Panathinaikos Athletics Medalists at the 1956 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) Mediterranean Games silver medalists for Greece Mediterranean Games medalists in athletics Athletes (track and field) at the 1955 Mediterranean Games 20th-century Greek sportsmen {{greece-athletics-bio-stub