Background
An ethnic Greek, Sabanis was born Luan Shabani in October 28, 1971 in southern Albania.
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Leonida Sabanis
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Results representing Albania
Results representing Greece
Sabanis emigrated to Greece in 1991 and represented Greece starting from 1993. Sabanis was originally awarded a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but the medal was later stripped from him as a result of a doping scandal.
Achievements
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He has also been a World Champion representing Greece. At the European Championship in Athens, Greece, in 1989, Sabanis represented Albania as Luan Shabani and won a bronze (big) medal in the 56kg category. He was the first Albanian to win a medal at a European Championship. A year later, at the European Championship in Aalborg (Denmark) in 1990, Sabanis won a silver (big) medal, and the first such medal for Albania. He won a silver medal in the 59 kg category at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, United States of America and in the 62 kg category in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
