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Today has dawned one of the worst mornings for Greek navigation.
Olympian Leonidas Pelekanakis passed away this morning, at the age of 58, after a battle with COVID-19 that lasted almost two months.
The sailing champion became the first high-level Greek athlete to die from the deadly virus. Leonidas Pelekanakis did not have any health problems. On the contrary, until October he participated in regattas on the high seas and marked winning routes.
Leonidas Pelekanakis was born on 11/22/1962. Since he was little he found himself in the sport of sailing. He started as an optimist at the Piraeus Sailing Club and continued in other Olympic categories such as Finn, Star, Soling while he was one of the best athletes on the high seas with international distinctions. He was considered one of the best “flyers” of his generation. “All his life he was sailing.” He loved the sport very much, “Olympian Dimitris Deligiannis told the overwhelmed” K. “Leonidas Pelekanakis, along with Dimitris Deligiannis and Tassos Boudouris, had become world champions at Soling until 1993.
The history of Leonidas Pelekanakis was full of distinctions. In triangle and open sea. In 1984, he participated in the Olympic Games alongside Ilias Hatzipavlis and won sixth place in the Star category at the Los Angeles event.
With the same category of boats he participated in two more Olympic events. In 2000, he competed in Sydney with Dimitris Boukis where he was ranked 11th, while in 2004, in Athens, he was ranked 11th. With him, at this event, was George Kontogouris.
As Dimitris Deligiannis told us, his whole life revolved around the sport of the masts. A Navy officer, he supported the team at the Naval Testing School, where he taught the test subjects the secrets of the sea. With the School team he participated in many Aegean Rallys. The historic institution of the Panhellenic Offshore Sailing Club was one of the champion’s favorite races and he had been on the podium many times with his team.
