Kettlebell training in Greece PDF Print E-mail
 

Kettlebell training in Greece

Kettlebell lifting was practiced in Greece, by a small but very advanced, number of athletes, long before they became widely known in the west.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union thousands of Greeks that lived in the ex soviet republics returned to their homeland, and some of them brought kettlebell training with them.
Among them Pantelis Filikidis a top strength coach in former Soviet Union and a true legend both as an athlete a coach.

Coach Filikidis (now 58 years old) is a 13 times kettlebell lifting world champion. He is also a Top class strength coach holding a World class Master of Sports degree in 3 sports, Kettlebell lifting, Olympic weight lifting and armwrestling.






He has personally trained more than 35 world champions in sports like Kettlebell lifting, Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, armwrestling and wrestling.
He has born in Kazakstan by Greek parents and he has trained numerous world champions their, among them World renowned Valery Fedorenko, head coach of the American kettlebell club and 3 times world champion.


Pantelis Filikidis, Valery Fedorenko, Nektarios Likiardopoulos, antonis Kaniaros, during 2009 World Kettlebell Club sport camp held in Greece 

In Kazakstan the national games are named after him to honor him for his great athletic achievements both as a coach and as an athlete.
Since his settlement in Greece he has trained 5 world champions in kettlebell lifting:
George Tsangouridis, Dimitris Filikidis, George Papadopoulos, Anastasios Heliopoulos and Pavlos Georgiadis.
Many of them can be seen doing strength fits at the YouTube videos posted by members of the American and World kettlebell club during their certification course and sport camp, held in Greece.


Pavlos Georgiadis doing  180, 1 armsnatches with a 32kg bell.


Georgios Tsangouridis performing 10 reps in double jerks with  50 kg bells


Georgios Tsangouridis performing 7 1 arm Jerks with a 90 kg bell.


Pavlos Georgiadis performing 105 Double Jerks with 24kg bells


George Papadopoulos, Bodyweight 62 kg, performing 5 reps on 1 arm jerks with 136 lbs kettlebell. 



It should be noted that Coach Filikidis still competes and recently won again the Veterans world championship in Kerch , Ukraine. He aslo won the gold medal in world championship in ArmWrestling in August 2009 held in Italy.
He has more than 20 world records under his belt some of them still unbrakable, including managing to lift of the ground 112 kg with his pinky finger.


This Video was posted to YouTube by Slovenian top kettlebell coach Gregor Sobokan during his visit to train in Greece. Coach Filikidis was training for the Arm Wrestling world championship during that time.

Coach Filikidis is the head coach of the Greek kettlebell team and strength and conditioning coach in our gym.
 This site is dedicated to him.