(ATR) Minos Kyriakou ascended to the heights of sport leadership in Greece after building successful shipping and media enterprises.
The cigarette puffing tycoon served as the president of SEGAS, the national federation for athletics. That post helped carry him to the presidency of the Hellenic Olympic Committee from 2004 to 2009. He was a member of the IAAF Council from 2004 to 2007.
Kyriakou died July 2 from a heart attack says a statement from the private hospital in Athens where he was treated. Funeral services were held Tuesday in Athens.
"I went in person to his funeral services this afternoon with my secretary general as well as the VP of the Academy and expressed our sympathy to his family," Hellenic Olympic Committee president Spyros Capraalos tells Around the Rings.
"I also informed President Bach and we have the flags, in the HOC offices, the Panathenaic Stadium and the IOA in Olympia, flown at half mast as a mark of respect," says Capralos.
He defeated Kyriakou for the HOC presidency in 2009 in a pitched campaign that attracted IOC scrutiny.
As president of the athletics federation during the Athens Olympics, Kyriakou initially rejected international demands to remove sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanoufrom the Greek team over doping violations. The controversy generated by the pair overshadowed the opening of the Athens Games. Kenteris, then the defending 200m gold medalist, had been tapped to light the caldron during opening ceremony.
Kyriakou had no alternative but to go along with the rulings of the IAAF as well as the IOC, which dismissed both athletes from the Athens Games for avoiding drug testers for months before the Olympics.
Regardless of the scandal, Kyriakou was selected to lead the HOC following the Athens Olympics, but led for one term only
Kyriakou launched a shipping business in the 1960s. In 1989 he started Antenna Group, a media conglomerate that includes TV and radio stations, internet and publishing.
He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
Reported by Ed Hula.
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