Collection of Balkan Games Medalist, Champion and Pacifist Gregory Lambrakis

Grigoris Lamprakis, Politician and Assistant Professor at Athens University, was born in 1912 Kerasitsa of Tegea, where he finished high school. Then he studied Medicine in the University of Athens. From his juvenile years, he had a particular tendency towards sports, and was nominated many times Balkan Games medalist in the Long Jump. In fact, he held the Pan-Hellenic record for this event for twenty-three years (1936-1959). In 1943, he founded the ΄΄Union of Greek Athletes” and organized games, from the proceeds of which he sponsored Meals for the Poor. Having a progressive orientation and a left-wing ideology G.Lamprakis took active part in the Peace Movement of the time. In the elections of 1961, he was elected Parliament Member for Piraeus with the Pan-democratic Agricultural Front Greece.( P.A.M.E). The same year , with his initiative “The Committee for International Remission and Peace” was founded. Under his capacity as its vice-president, he took part in the international events for Peace. On April 24, 1963, the movement for Peace organized the first march for Peace from Marathon to Athens, in which he played a leading part. The police intervened, stopping the march and making many arrests. Lamprakis however, protected by his parliamentary immunity, advanced courageously, and reached the finish line alone, holding a banner with the sign of Peace. The police officers in the end, falling on to him, arrested him. On May 22, 1963 after the end of a peace protest in Thessalonica, in which Lamprakis proclaimed his views on peace, he became victim of an assassination attempt, on May 27, he died.His funeral took place in Athens the next day, attended by 500.000 people , shouting slogans against the government and extra-governmental organizations “Democracy , Lamprakis Lives!’’.

Balkan Champion Collection, Peacemaker Gregory Lambrakis