She saved him from drugs and he loved her almost to death - it's a Romeo and Juliet tragedy updated for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

A lovers' tiff prompted Greek Olympic judoka Eleni Ioannou to jump off the balcony of the flat she shared with her boyfriend on Saturday, six days before the Games' opening ceremony.

Guilt drove Giorgos Chrisostomidis to a copy-cat jump two days later. Both are in hospital fighting for their lives after the three-storey fall.

According to Apogevmatini daily which ran the story under a headline of "They are fighting death for their love," the couple had been living together for more than one and a half years.

The young man, who lost his father at a young age and was raised by his grandparents, was a drug addict until he met Ioannou, who supported him and got him into de-tox.

As a former drug addict, he had trouble getting a job, with Ioannou his major ally and source of consolation.

"The fact that she had helped him escape drugs had made him love her pathologically," wrote daily Eleftheros Typos.

"As he told police in his statement, the prospect of a short time apart -- as she was going into the Olympic Village with all the other athletes -- upset him, and his insecurity led him to fear he would lose her."

"They had a verbal fight, and he slapped her. She slapped him back in panic, then run off to the balcony and jumped," Eleftheros Typos added.

"She got through a tough preparation period, there was also pressure from her relationship, and that is how we got here. I ask all Greeks to make a wish for her," Ioannou's coach Giorgos Boutakis was quoted in Kathimerini daily as saying. Ioannou has been in intensive care since.

"After Eleni's fall, the world went out from under his feet," Apogevmatini quoted friends of the boyfriend as saying.

According to Eleftheros Typos, he was racked with guilt and thought himself responsible for her injury.

"On Monday noon, Giorgos was eating with his grandmother in the flat, when suddenly he told her 'I want to go to Eleni', left the table and jumped from the same spot on the balcony," Eleftheros Typos wrote.

"He had put himself on trial and condemned himself".