Vasilis Papageorgopoulos

Vasilis Papageorgopoulos is a retired Greek sprinter, former mayor of Thessaloniki and convicted felon. He competed at two Olympic Games in 1972 and 1976.

Biography

In addition to his two Olympic appearances, Papageorgopoulos won two medals at the European Indoor Championships as well as the bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 1971 European Championships in Athletics. He was named the 1971 Greek Athlete of the Year. His personal best in 100 metres was 10.22 seconds, achieved in August 1972 in İzmir. This ranks him twelfth among Greek 100 metre sprinters.
Papageorgopoulos won the British AAA Championships title in the 100 metres event at the 1972 AAA Championships.
He also studied medicine. Papageorgopoulos first got involved in politics in 1978 when he was elected City councilor of Thessaloniki. He practiced dentistry until 1981, when he was elected as a member of the Greek Parliament, representing Thessaloniki, for the Conservative New Democracy party. From 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2010, Papageorgopoulos was the mayor of Thessaloniki.

Corruption charges

In April 2011, he was among 25 people contacted by an investigating magistrate with a probe into alleged embezzlement of 51.4 million euros of the municipality. He was also accused by his successor Yiannis Boutaris of providing inaccurate financial figures. In February 2013, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzling 17.9 million euro of the Municipality of Thessaloniki while he was mayor. In July 2014, the sentence was reduced to a maximum of 20 years after an appeals court in Thessaloniki ruled that Papageorgopoulos's crimes amounted to acting as "accessory to the stealing of municipal funds while in office.” In July 2015 Papageorgopoulos was granted parole due to health problems.

Honours

At the 1972 Summer Olympics he was forced to scratch from the semi-finals after he had pulled a groin muscle in the quarter-finals.