Greek long jumper to auction his shoes for child victims of quakes in Türkiye

A famous Greek long jumper will auction his shoes, with the proceeds to be donated for the child victims of the twin earthquakes that struck southern Türkiye last week, local media reported Thursday.

The sports shoes, which were worn by Olympic gold medalist Miltiadis Tentoglou in his latest performance Wednesday at the World Athletics Indoor Tour in France, will be auctioned as suggested to him by his coach Giorgos Pomaski, according to public broadcaster ERT.

Tentoglou, born in 1998, won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a jump of 8.41 meters.

He also won four consecutive European titles, in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.

At least 38,044 people were killed by two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, the country's disaster agency said early Friday.

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes were centered in Kahramanmaras and struck 10 other provinces-Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Kilis, Osmaniye, Elazığ and Şanlıurfa. More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating quakes.

Several countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon, also felt the strong tremors that struck Türkiye in the space of less than 10 hours.