Greece Flips for This Gymnast

Dimosthenis Tampakos lowers his eyes when he speaks. He smiles but not easily. He considers his words carefully and does not call attention to himself. Though he is 27, Tampakos lives at home with his parents in Thessaloniki. He has become a famous athlete in his country but would prefer anonymity.

“He is very modest, maybe the most modest athlete in Greece,” says Ioannis Tzoustas, a press officer at the Olympic gymnastics venue and a longtime chronicler of Tampakos. “If he never had to speak in public, Dimos would be happy.”

That may be impossible after Sunday night.

Tampakos -- an Olympic silver medalist on the still rings in 2000 in Sydney and a co-gold medalist at last year’s world championships in Anaheim -- qualified first in his specialty for Sunday’s event final with a score of 9.850. That’s almost as good as perfect in men’s gymnastics.

“I showed 75% of my potential,” Tampakos said afterward. “In the finals I will try to achieve 100%.”

That’s as close to bragging as Tampakos will come. He loves to play guitar and act as a disc jockey but only among close friends. He is deliberate in choosing his routines on the rings just as he was deliberate in choosing his sports specialty.

“Dimos does everything slowly,” says his coach, Alex Ioakimidis. “He was a slow starter in the sport and even today he takes every practice slowly, does every move slowly. He even drives slowly.”

Tampakos, 5 feet 4 and 130 pounds, began gymnastics he said, “because I could never stay still as a child. So my parents sent me to the gym to protect themselves.”

His father, Christos, worked for the Greek air force and his mother, Irini was a stay-at-home mom to Tampakos and his younger sister Evi.

Until the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, gymnastics was not much more than an enjoyable outlet for Tampakos’ energy. But in Atlanta, 19-year-old Ioannis Melissanidis, a medical student from Tampakos’ hometown, was a stunning upset gold-medal winner in the floor exercise. It was the first gymnastics gold medal for Greece in 100 years and it gave Tampakos pause.

“I realized how much I loved the sport and how special it would be if the Olympics would come to Greece while I was competing,” he said.

A year later, Athens was awarded these Games, and for seven years Tampakos has focused on staying fit and improving his skills so that he might perform here.

“At first I was not thinking of a medal,” Tampakos said. “I wanted to make the competition.”

In a poll taken last year, soccer was voted the most popular sport in Greece followed by track and field, swimming and then gymnastics.

“Until 1997 we did not even have a Greek gymnastics federation,” Tzoustas said. “Gymnastics was just a small part of the track and field federation. After the gold medal in Atlanta and because of the emergence of Dimos, the sport here has grown incredibly.”

Tampakos carried the Greek flag during last Friday’s opening ceremony and didn’t get back to the athlete’s village until nearly 4 a.m. It was a grueling evening with a lot of standing around in oppressive heat, but Tampakos said he never considered staying home.

And he was the most energetic competitor the next day, even though the crowd was small.

“They still made much noise,” he said. “I forgot I was tired. It was important to do well for the love of the people and for their support.”

His 9.85 score was Tampakos’ first over 9.80 in a major competition. He has two strength moves on the rings named after him.

Tim Daggett, a member of the 1984 U.S. team, calls Tampakos “a monster.”

“Part of his first name -- Dimos -- in Greek means strength,” Daggett said. “And he is all of that. He is a monster. When he’s on the rings, the only thing that moves is his hair.”

Tampakos first competed for Greece 14 years ago, when he never thought of winning medals at international competitions and couldn’t have imagined competing for Greece in Athens. Now a crowd of 15,000 is expected Sunday night. They will come to see Tampakos, the quiet man who would rather be ignored.