Athanasios Iliadis

Athanasios Iliadis (Greek: Αθανάσιος Ηλιάδης; also known as Thanasis Iliadis) was a Greek amateur boxer who represented Iraklis Thessaloniki, the Hellenic Coast Guard and Greece at the highest level of international boxing. Born in Thessaloniki on 23 August 1952, he stood about 172 cm and competed mainly at welterweight (67 kg), later also at light middleweight (71 kg). Across a long career he won Greek national titles, a Mediterranean Games bronze medal, two Balkan Championships gold medals, repeated Acropolis Cup victories, and a place at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

He rose through the Greek amateur ranks from the late 1960s. He was recorded as a Category C champion at 57 kg in 1968 and a Category B champion at 63.5 kg in 1969, then as a Category A national champion at 63.5 kg (1972 to 1974), at 71 kg in 1975, and at 67 kg in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1980. He also won Armed Forces and Security Corps championships in 1972, 1977, 1979, 1980, from 1982 to 1987, and in 1991. Historians of Greek boxing credit him with more than 93 international bouts, an exceptional total for a Greek amateur of his era.

At the 1975 Mediterranean Games in Algiers he took bronze at 67 kg. In 1976 he boxed for Greece at the Montreal Olympics in the men's welterweight division. He received a first round bye, then lost a 5-0 decision to East Germany's Jochen Bachfeld, who went on to win the Olympic gold medal; Iliadis finished equal seventeenth. He became Balkan champion at 67 kg in Bursa, Turkey, in 1977, defeating Romania's Cornel Hodut in the final, and again in Tulcea, Romania, in 1979, stopping Romania's Ion Vladimir in the first round of the final. He won the international Acropolis Cup at 67 kg in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979, and at 71 kg in 1981.

Contemporaries described him as disciplined, respectful of opponents and reluctant to injure sparring partners. Pantazis Markakis and longtime Hellenic Boxing Federation official Giannis Ioannidis both ranked him among the greatest Greek boxers of all time. Boxing chronicler Giorgos Botinis later wrote that Iliadis was well prepared for the 1980 Moscow Olympics after strong showings in Poland and the Soviet Union, but was not selected by the federation for that Games.

Iliadis was married and had one daughter. He remained associated with Thessaloniki and with the Coast Guard boxing tradition that had supported his career. He died in September 2026 at the age of 74. The Enosi Philathlon Vareon Athlimaton (Ε.ΦΙ.Β.Α.) published a memorial on 26 September 2026 calling him an emblematic figure of Greek boxing; political and sports outlets including Iskra and Greece 247 carried tributes the following day. English and Greek Wikipedia and Olympedia record his death as September 2026.