Tentoglou was born in Thessaloniki on 18 March 1998.[14] His paternal greatgrandfather was a Greek refugee from Anatolia.[15] He grew up in the town of Grevena, where he spent his childhood and teenage years.[16]
Until 15, he had no experience in track and field. In his teenage years his hobby was parkour. He started athletics completely by accident at the age of 15, at the urging of the Greek athletics coach, Vangelis Papanikos, who had watched him doing parkour in the stadium bleachers at the Grevena stadium. Papanikos was the first person to recognise Tentoglou's natural talent and physical agility and became his first coach.[17] In 2017, Tentoglou teamed up with recognised Greek-Bulgarian coach, Georgi Pomashki, who is his current coach.[18][19]
In May 2016, he jumped 8.19 metres in Kalamata to break the Greek national U20 record.[20] Two months later, he won the silver medal at the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland for a leap of 7.91m, behind Cuban Maykel Massó (8.00m). The following month, Tentoglou was one of the youngest members of Hellenic expedition at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he was, however, eliminated in the qualifications (7.64m).
In June 2017, at the Greek Athletics Championships in Patras, Tentoglou improved his national U20 record by landing at 8.30 metres.[20] In July, he went on to claim a gold at the European U20 Championships held in Grosseto, Italy, jumping 8.07m.
From that point, major titles kept piling up for Miltiadis, culminating in him winning the 2020 Summer Olympic crown in the Japan capital Tokyo, where he soared at 8.41 metres to win on countback over Cuba's Juan Miguel Echevarría, with Massó third at 8.21m. He has won five consecutive European titles: at Berlin 2018, where he became the youngest Greek man to win a continental gold, at indoor Glasgow 2019, where he set a Greek indoor record, at indoor Toruń 2021, at Munich 2022, where he set a championship record in the process,[21] and at indoor Istanbul 2023, where he became the first man in history to claim three successive long jump titles at the European Indoors.[22] Only Hans Baumgartner has also won three, but not straight, European indoor titles.
In May 2021, at a meeting in Athens, Tentoglou landed at 8.60 metres, becoming the third-best European performer of all time, behind Robert Emmiyan and compatriot Louis Tsatoumas.[23]
In Glasgow, at the 2024 World Indoors Championships, Tentoglou secured his second world indoor title in an incredibly close contest. With just one centimetre separating the three medallists, it matched the 2012 edition for the closest ever World Indoor Championships long jump final. Tentoglou won on countback after soaring a best of 8.22m.[24]
In June 2024, at the European Athletics Championships, he extended his championship record by jumping 8.65m. twice in the process, taking the gold medal again and setting, also, a new PB.
In August 2024, at Paris's Olympic Games he maintained his Olympic title with a leap of 8.48 m, making him the only jumper after Carl Lewis, with a back-to-back Olympic gold medal in the long jump.
In September 2024, he spoke out against the World Athletics Federation's intention to replace the wooden jumping board with a take off zone. He said if this change will take place, he will retire.[25]
In July 2025, he won the gold medal at the 77th Balkan Athletics Championships.[26]
Honours - International competitions
At Istanbul 2023, Tentoglou claimed his fifth consecutive European title.
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