Georgios Roubanis
 | ||
| Men's Athletics | ||
| Bronze | 1956 | Pole vault |
Georgios Roubanis (Greek Γεώργιος Ρουμπάνης) was a Greek pole vaulter, an athlete and later President of Panellinios Gymnastic Club.
Roubanis was born on July 31, 1929, in Thessaloniki, to a family that hailed from Arcadia in the Peloponnese.
Among the honours he won were: Second place in the 1955 Mediterranean Games, four times Balkan Games winner and three times winner in the Pan-Hellenic Games.
His greatest honour however came in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games: On November 26, after an epic 8-hour battle, Roubanis won a bronze medal in the pole vault, with a jump of 4.50m , setting a Greek record - which would not be broken until 8 years later - and ending a drought of 44 years in which Greece had not won a single medal in athletics.
In order to attend the Melbourne event, Roubanis lost a semester of his studies at UCLA, U.S.A. He abandoned athletics in 1961. After studying political economics, he got his master's degree in local self-government. He worked in the USA for 5 years as a management consultant for a movie company. He also set up an advertising company and a printing plant. In sports, he served as the President of the Panhellenic Association of Calisthenics and founded several other associations.
Roubanis died on February 11, 2025, at the age of 95.