Greek dancer Naima Gerasopoulou has reached the top of the tango world, winning the 2026 Tango de Pista World Championship in Buenos Aires alongside her Argentine partner, Lucas Gauto.
The pair received a standing ovation as confetti filled the stage and they lifted the championship trophy. Gerasopoulou celebrated the victory with the Greek flag, while Gauto held the Argentine flag, putting Greece prominently on the stage at one of the world’s most important tango competitions.
More than 800 couples from around the world took part in the competition, which attracts leading tango dancers to Buenos Aires, the city widely regarded as the birthplace and global home of the dance.
The victory holds particular significance for Gerasopoulou because she discovered tango almost by accident in Greece.
“When I started in Greece, honestly, I didn’t even know what tango was. I didn’t even know it existed,” she recalled.
She said the connection between two dancers first drew her to the dance.
“What I felt was a genuine embrace from someone I didn’t know.”
Gerasopoulou said she could not understand how two people who had never met could establish such an intimate and authentic connection through an embrace.
“That was what enchanted me. It made me fall completely in love with tango,” she said.
Her dedication eventually took her from her first encounters with tango in Greece to the world’s biggest stage in Buenos Aires.
The result also underlined the international character of the competition. In the Pista category, Córdoba-born Gauto won the title with Greek dancer Gerasopoulou, while the senior category went to Aldo Adrián Romero of Tucumán, who partnered Buenos Aires dancer Marcela Pilatti.
For Gerasopoulou, however, the defining image of the night was unmistakable: the Greek flag alongside the Argentine flag as she and Gauto raised the world championship trophy before a packed audience and thousands of viewers watching online around the world.
