Scoggins: Gophers’ Greek connection could produce NCAA hammer throw title. But from which competitor?

Kostas Zaltos’ track and field résumé includes three Big Ten championships, one NCAA silver medal and two NCAA bronze medals in the hammer throw.

He set a singular goal for his final season in a Gophers uniform.

“W-I-N,” Zaltos said, spelling out the word slowly for emphasis. “Win it all. Nothing else. If I get second or third, my season is not what I want it to [be].”

He knows winning that elusive national championship won’t be easy because he has collected good intel on his main competition.

They share an apartment.

Zaltos and Angelos Mantzouranis are not just roomies, friends, teammates and fellow natives of Greece. They also rank among the best in the world in the hammer throw.

Mantzouranis, a sophomore, recently recorded a throw of 78.61 meters, the sixth-best mark in the world this year and the third-best in NCAA history. That throw qualified him for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September.

Zaltos, a graduate student, posted a throw of 77.91 meters, which is ninth-best in the world this year and eighth-best in NCAA history. It was a school-record mark that deserves an asterisk because his throw — and an earlier attempt at the same meet — would have traveled even farther if the ball hadn’t struck a tree in the landing sector.

“It was a big tree,” Zaltos explained. “A tree that was probably there more than 40 years. I have a picture, I can show you of the damage.”

Zaltos joked that maybe a physics major could calculate the true distance.

“It was a big, big throw,” he said.

Mantzouranis noted that he once hit a car at a meet.

“It was close to the street,” he said. “The fence wasn’t really high.”

He keeps photos as evidence, too.

The pair has shattered tree branches, quarter panels and record books. They are the first teammates in NCAA history to throw farther than 77 meters in the same meet (they have done so twice) and currently rank No. 1 and 2 in the NCAA.

“I can never relax with Angelos,” Zaltos said. “If I want to take a deep breath, I can’t because he’s there all the time.”

How they got involved in hammer throw and found their way to Minnesota is a testament to timing, curiosity and relationships.

Hammer throw is one of four throwing events in track and field. Rhode Island is the only state in the country that offers hammer throw as a sanctioned high school event because of space specifications, safety concerns and costs associated with that event.

The competition requires a large parcel of land to accommodate both right-handed and left-handed throwers, which can create logistical challenges. Hence, a tree in the landing area.

The apparatus is a metal ball attached to a wire connected to a handle. Competitors spin in a circle to gain velocity before releasing the hammer.

Hammer throw is popular in Greece at youth club levels, though it wasn’t the sport of choice for the Gophers contingent.

Zaltos played basketball as a kid. His idol is Giannis Antetokounmpo, the NBA superstar and Greek citizen who is known as the “Greek Freak.”

A physical education teacher introduced him to hammer throw. Zaltos wasn’t sold.

“I’m like, are you kidding me? No, I don’t want to throw,” he said. “I just want to play basketball.”

He tried it, became hooked and won a national title as a teenager.

Mantzouranis competed in swimming until his body started to change as a teenager and he looked for a different activity. A friend competed in the high jump and invited him to join track. Mantzouranis was a sprinter in swimming, so he figured he’d try sprint events in track. The coach took one look at his muscular build and put him in hammer throw.

“I had never heard of it,” Mantzouranis said.

He was a natural, too.

Linked by their commonalities, their differences as competitors are unmistakable. Zaltos is left-handed, taller and leaner. Mantzouranis is right-handed and built like a football nose tackle at 6-0 and 270 pounds. He once squatted 660 pounds and treats the weight room as his happy place.

“Whenever I go to the weight room and I see him lifting more, it’s my goal to do more, too,” Zaltos said. “Even though I can’t.”

Zaltos is the leader of the pipeline of Greek hammer throwers who were discovered by Gophers throws coach Peter Miller on international scouting trips. That group now includes freshman Pavlos Tzamtzis, who grew up near Zaltos in Greece and followed his path to Dinkytown.

Zaltos contacted Miller on Facebook while researching U.S. colleges and track and field programs. They agreed to meet at the European championships in Sweden that summer. The meet went horribly. Zaltos fouled out of the competition because his feet didn’t stay inside the circle on his throws.

Miller wasn’t discouraged, and Zaltos arrived in 2020. The connections Miller made with Greek coaches opened the door for Mantzouranis, then Tzamtzis.

“The only thing I was looking for was a coach I could trust with my progress,” Mantzouranis said. “It wasn’t really hard to make the decision. Kostas was here.”

The process hasn’t always been easy. Zaltos was forced to return to Greece less than two months after enrolling in January because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His parents own a bakery in their small town in northern Greece. Zaltos worked at the family business while taking classes at the U via Zoom. The eight-hour time difference meant his classes went from 8 p.m. to midnight. He had his worst GPA of his college career that semester.

At one point, Zaltos told Miller that he had decided to withdraw from school and remain in Greece. Miller, Zaltos’ academic adviser and his parents encouraged him to stick it out for one more semester once he was able to return to campus.

“They gave me the boost I needed to keep doing that,” he said.

The Gophers dropped their indoor track and field program in 2021 but maintained the outdoor program. Zaltos won the first of his three consecutive Big Ten titles that season. He also found a second home.

“I’m very happy that I came here, and I feel like I’m safe,” he said. “That’s the biggest part. I feel safe. I feel like I’m part of a team. I’m part of a big family.”

He serves in the role of big brother to teammates. He and Mantzouranis share an apartment with two members of the rowing team who are also from Greece. Tzamtzis lives in a dorm as a freshman but spends a lot of time at their apartment.

“I used to speak English all the time. Now I can throw some Greek words out,” Zaltos said. “It is nice. Before that, I had nobody. I can feel at home. It’s a good vibe.”

A competitive vibe, too. Mantzouranis has spent his first two seasons chasing Zaltos’ marks and records. He won the Big Ten last season and placed third at the NCAA Championships as a true freshman while Zaltos took a redshirt season to train for the Paris Olympics (he missed qualifying by a slim margin).

Mantzouranis holds the top throw now, which has put him in the running for the Bowerman Award, college track and field’s version of the Heisman Trophy.

The roommates and countrymen have their next duel starting Friday at the Big Ten Championships. Flip a coin.

“It will not be easy for either of them to win the Big Ten,” Miller said, “because the other one can just as easily win it.”

Just keep the trees out of the way.