A Second Chance
Stelios Malakopoulos |
TEDxAUTH
• April 2019
Stelios Malakopoulos was born in Thessaloniki in 1996. Today he is a distinguished athlete and a student of the Department of Economics of the University of Macedonia.
From a very young age he showed his inclination towards sports and especially basketball. A car accident in August 2015 changed his life forever as both of his legs were mutilated. However, he quickly managed to stand up and create a new perspective in life by becoming a great athlete. More specifically, he stopped training basketball and started his career in athletics. In 2018 he won the 2nd place in 200 meters and the third place in 400 meters in the European Championship held in Berlin. A year later, in 2019, he broke the World Record of the long jump attaining the score of 6.80 meters. Moreover, Stelios holds all the Pan-Hellenic records of the specific sport. Thanks to his faith in God he never stops trying. Last but not least, Stelios’s next goal is a distinction in the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.