Greece National Thread

[Makedonas 2,200]

Our boys lost in water polo. They were down 0-4 after the first period so at that point it was always going to be hard to turn it around. They lost 10-12 in the end. Playing against Croatia tomorrow for bronze.

 

We have four medals in athletics but zero gold (three silver from Frantzeskakis, Karydi, Karalis and one bronze from Mouzenidis). To be honest Karalis has been disappointing lately, I expected more from him. His PB is from 2018. However it's not the end of the world, Stefanidi didn't improve her PB for six years and still ended up winning Olympic gold.

 

Rowing has been going very well. We only sent 7 boats and 6 of them made finals, with 5 of them having very good chances for medals in my opinion. Anastasiadou, Arabatzi and Fragkou are so impressive. 19, 18, and 18 years old. Fragkou was born in 2003 so she's still eligible to compete in juniors too. I'd like to see Anastasiadou team up with Nikolaidou and aim for Paris together in LW2X. I think they'd be able to win a medal together. It's a shame we haven't qualified for the Olympics in that event since London 2012 considering how many talents we've had in women's lightweight rowing.

 

Also really nice to see Christos Stergiakas come back to the national team. He won gold at the U23 Championships in 2018 and disappeared after, so it's good to see him with a chance to win another gold three years later. I'd like to see us send to Paris our biggest Olympic rowing team ever. We had 10 in London and Rio but only 4 in Tokyo.

[maestro 671]

  On 7/10/2021 at 6:56 PM, Makedonas said:

We have four medals in athletics but zero gold (three silver from Frantzeskakis, Karydi, Karalis and one bronze from Mouzenidis). To be honest Karalis has been disappointing lately, I expected more from him. His PB is from 2018. However it's not the end of the world, Stefanidi didn't improve her PB for six years and still ended up winning Olympic gold.

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I think Karalis will have chances to improve in the future, as long as he stays injury free, which hasn't been the case in the last few years. Also, I'm not sure about that, but I think, during these years, he has had some coach change(s). These changes need time to work, much time for some athletes, especially if the new coach tries to change the athlete's technique and injuries don't help this process.

[Makedonas 2,200]

  On 7/10/2021 at 8:04 PM, maestro said:

I think Karalis will have chances to improve in the future, as long as he stays injury free, which hasn't been the case in the last few years. Also, I'm not sure about that, but I think, during these years, he has had some coach change(s). These changes need time to work, much time for some athletes, especially if the new coach tries to change the athlete's technique and injuries don't help this process.

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That's very true, also sometimes we see people work hard for many years without improving their PBs and then suddenly everything falls into place. Dimitra Gnafaki is a good example of this in the 400m hurdles and also Ioanna Zakka in the high jump. Both of them seemed to kind of stall for a few years and stop making progress and then recently got huge new PBs.

 

Hopefully that also happens with Karalis and also some others like Antonios Merlos and Panagiota Dosi.

 

 

Also this weekend we have the U18 national championships in Volos. I haven't been following too much but disappointed that 16 yo Iliana Triantafyllou isn't there. She won the U20 championships last week (pole vault) with 4.12m. It's pretty incredible how much depth we have in some events (women's pole vault, men's hammer throw).

[maestro 671]

  On 7/10/2021 at 8:24 PM, Makedonas said:

That's very true, also sometimes we see people work hard for many years without improving their PBs and then suddenly everything falls into place. Dimitra Gnafaki is a good example of this in the 400m hurdles and also Ioanna Zakka in the high jump. Both of them seemed to kind of stall for a few years and stop making progress and then recently got huge new PBs.

 

Hopefully that also happens with Karalis and also some others like Antonios Merlos and Panagiota Dosi.

 

 

Also this weekend we have the U18 national championships in Volos. I haven't been following too much but disappointed that 16 yo Iliana Triantafyllou isn't there. She won the U20 championships last week (pole vault) with 4.12m. It's pretty incredible how much depth we have in some events (women's pole vault, men's hammer throw).

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A comment for the last sentence. I think that after some years, during which Greece has produced many pole vaulters with huge success, nowdays greek pole vault coaches have excellent knowledge and expertise of what is needed to convert a child who is talented in pole vault into a top level athlete.

I hope in the next few years we will be able to say the same for other events as well, not to mention that recent success of athletes like Stefanidi and Tentoglou will inspire more children to take up the sport. So hopefully, some new talents will be discovered. Of course, they should be willing to work hard to make it to the top. 

[Makedonas 2,200]

  On 7/10/2021 at 8:47 PM, maestro said:

A comment for the last sentence. I think that after some years, during which Greece has produced many pole vaulters with huge success, nowdays greek pole vault coaches have excellent knowledge and expertise of what is needed to convert a child who is talented in pole vault into a top level athlete.

I hope in the next few years we will be able to say the same for other events as well, not to mention that recent success of athletes like Stefanidi and Tentoglou will inspire more children to take up the sport. So hopefully, some new talents will be discovered. Of course, they should be willing to work hard to make it to the top. 

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I agree. It also seems like certain areas in Greece produce athletes in certain events.

 

For example we have a lot of throwers from Chania (Anastasakis, Frantzeskakis, Dousakis, Bouzakis, Tzatzimaki), Chalkidiki (Mouzenidis, Tzengko, Dragomirova, Latifllari, Kessidi) and Kilkis (Zaltos, Zotos, Prodanas, Korakidis brothers, Pavlidis).

 

A lot of jumpers from Kerkyra (Karydi, Romaiou, Mantzourogiannis, Dosi, Monopolis, Nerantzis) and Grevena (Tentoglou, Zakka, Koutsaliari)

 

And a lot of hurdlers from Katerini (Pesiridou, Kiafa, Chatzipourgani, Dalaka before she switched to 100m)

 

Race walkers from Karditsa (Papamichail, Tsinopoulou, Drisbioti)

 

 

I guess in some of these places they have good coaches who specialize these events and as you said they know what to do with the athletes. A shame we don't have many good middle/long distance runners, but there are some young ones that are quite impressive for our standards so far (of course I also thought the same about Karakatsani and Marinakou but neither one really did much of note).

 

[Makedonas 2,200]

We beat Croatia 11-7 to win bronze in boys water polo 

This Spyridon Lykoudis kid scored 5 goals, will be interesting to watch his development over the next years.

 

We finished athletics and rowing with 4 medals in each. Again I will say that I think we can build a really good rowing team for Paris. Ntouskos is the only male rower we are sending to Tokyo, but now we had Palaiopanos/Stergiakas (M2X) and Papakonstantinou (LM1X) all win gold medals.

 

And our female medalists are all young. 19 yo Anastasiadou got silver in LW1X and 18 yos Arabatzi/Fragkou got bronze in W2X. We didn't qualify for LW2X or W2X in Tokyo, so that's another good chance for us. Plus of course with a healthy Asoumanaki and Nikolaidou, and others who compete in the US university teams like Tsamopoulou, Christodoulidis, Pergouli, Vontzou, Noni, Agioti...we have many options. Of course there are also some girls who are even younger like Natsioula, Leventelli and also a bunch of girls from Thessaloniki who won medals at the European Junior Championships last year.

 

 

The European U20 Athletics Championships next weekend will also be quite interesting. Tzengko, Filippidou, Emmanouilidou, Chatzipourgani, Dragomirova, Chytas, and the three guys in the hammer throw are the ones I'm looking forward to the most.

[Makedonas 2,200]

 

  On 7/10/2021 at 9:02 PM, Makedonas said:

A shame we don't have many good middle/long distance runners, but there are some young ones that are quite impressive for our standards so far (of course I also thought the same about Karakatsani and Marinakou but neither one really did much of note).

 

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And just like that Elli Deligianni finishes 4th at the European U20 Championships in the women's 800m with a new U20NR of 2:04.11. 2:04.02 got silver and 2:04.08 got bronze, so she was really close to even a medal.

 

And Vasiliki Kallimogianni finishes 11th in the women's 3000 steeplechase. She broke the U20NR in the semifinals and she is just 16 years old. She was the youngest athlete in the final and only two of the 15 girls from the final will be eligible for this category in 2023 at the next European Championships, Kallimogianni and one of the German girls.

 

It's too bad Vasileia Spyrou is injured and not competing here as she also seems to be doing very well. Plus Alkistis Givizini did very well this year and she is also very young. Others like Eleni Ioannidou, Ioanna Panopoulou and Nikoleta Kynatidou seem to have stopped making progress so hopefully the girls I mentioned in this post don't fall into that same trap. Nevertheless these are good signs for Greek athletics. I'm not sure about Paris 2024, but I think in Los Angeles 2028 we will have some representation in these middle/long distance events. At least for the women, as the men's situation still looks poor.

[Bjelica 1]

  On 7/10/2021 at 6:56 PM, Makedonas said:

Our boys lost in water polo. They were down 0-4 after the first period so at that point it was always going to be hard to turn it around. They lost 10-12 in the end. Playing against Croatia tomorrow for bronze.

 

We have four medals in athletics but zero gold (three silver from Frantzeskakis, Karydi, Karalis and one bronze from Mouzenidis). To be honest Karalis has been disappointing lately, I expected more from him. His PB is from 2018. However it's not the end of the world, Stefanidi didn't improve her PB for six years and still ended up winning Olympic gold.

 

Rowing has been going very well. We only sent 7 boats and 6 of them made finals, with 5 of them having very good chances for medals in my opinion. Anastasiadou, Arabatzi and Fragkou are so impressive. 19, 18, and 18 years old. Fragkou was born in 2003 so she's still eligible to compete in juniors too. I'd like to see Anastasiadou team up with Nikolaidou and aim for Paris together in LW2X. I think they'd be able to win a medal together. It's a shame we haven't qualified for the Olympics in that event since London 2012 considering how many talents we've had in women's lightweight rowing.

 

Also really nice to see Christos Stergiakas come back to the national team. He won gold at the U23 Championships in 2018 and disappeared after, so it's good to see him with a chance to win another gold three years later. I'd like to see us send to Paris our biggest Olympic rowing team ever. We had 10 in London and Rio but only 4 in Tokyo.

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I have one question, how much medals do you predict for you country on this Olympic games ? I would say 5-6

Thanks and good luck on OG (will watch pole vault and many your athletes in this discipine)

[Makedonas 2,200]

  On 7/23/2021 at 2:02 AM, Bjelica said:

I have one question, how much medals do you predict for you country on this Olympic games ? I would say 5-6

Thanks and good luck on OG (will watch pole vault and many your athletes in this discipine)

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Hello, thank you for your support.

 

Yeah I would also say 5-6. It could also be less like 2-3, but also maybe 8-10 with some luck.

 

I think Petrounias will win a medal, and I also think we will get one in athletics (probably Tentoglou but maybe Stefanidi) and one in tennis (probably Tsitsipas).

 

Then we have some chances in sailing, Ntouskos in rowing, Gkountoura in fencing, Gkolomeev in swimming, Korakaki in shooting, Prevolaraki in wrestling, smaller chances in men's water polo, Volikakis in cycling, maybe another medal in athletics (Papachristou?), Mavrommatis in shooting, Tzeli in taekwondo, Pilidis in wrestling, perhaps Kynigakis in the swimming marathon or Christou in 100m backstroke. We will see.

[Makedonas 2,200]

I'm still feeling very good about these Games despite only winning 3 medals so far. I think men's water polo, Stefanidi and Prevolaraki are all very good medal chances as well as smaller chances for Volikakis, Kynigakis, Kyriakopoulou, Pilidis...

 

 

The biggest highlight from Tokyo for me has been seeing how many good young athletes we have which makes me confident for the future.

 

Ntouskos (24) and Tentoglou (23) winning gold medals is really great, and I expect to see them both back in Paris which would also be very nice. If they can stay healthy then I think they can take medals there as well.

 

Karalis (21) coming 4th in the men's pole vault was a nice surprise. It looks like he is finally in the right direction again and I'm excited about his future.

 

Bourmpou (20) and Kyridou (20) finishing 5th in the women's pair in rowing was also an incredible result for their ages, and I think they can also perhaps win a medal in Paris.

 

Sakkari (26) and Tsitsipas (22) maybe didn't win medals, but in total we won 5 matches in tennis after not being represented in the sport since 2008 (and not winning any matches since 2004), so it was still a positive showing and I think in 2024 they will do even better.

 

Teltsidou (25) finishing 7th in judo was a pleasant surprise, and I hope this gives her the confidence to take the next step in her career and start to become a medal contender in future competitions.

 

Korakaki (25) finishing 6th in both shooting events is a tremendous accomplishment even if she won two medals in 2016. In a sport like shooting where age isn't so important, she will obviously be around for at least another 5-6 Olympics and I think it is fair to expect more medals from her.

 

Karachaliou (24) finishing 9th in sailing was not bad for her first Olympics and I think we will see her in Paris, Los Angeles and maybe Brisbane.

 

Ntountounaki (25) 9th in women's 100m butterfly. Best result from a Greek female swimmer since 2004. She seems like a late bloomer and hopefully she can keep improving and make the final in 2024. Same goes for Christou (24) in the men's 100m backstroke who was 11th.

 

A.Kyridou (22) finishing 10th in the women's single sculls is also very good for her age. Everyone else who finished above her was 6+ years older than her. I think she can also win a medal in Paris, regardless of whether she competes in the single sculls or not (probably it is more likely for her to change categories).

 

Tzeli (19) finishing 7th in taekwondo was also good even though she didn't win any matches. I liked what I saw from her and the fact that she qualified is very positive and a good sign for the future.

 

Gkountoura (24) was disappointing that she lost so early in fencing but like Tzeli, I think she has a good future ahead of her.

 

In field events, Scarvelis (25) and Polak (24) I think can do even better in Paris and make the finals in their events. Same goes for Anastasakis (26) and Frantzeskakis (21).

 

Papastamos (20) had the second-best time of his career in the men's 400 IM and finished 14th. In Paris I think he can make the final.

 

Divari (21) and Spanaki (20) in sailing didn't do so well but both are very young so it's okay. Same with Markos (19) in swimming.

 

Obviously there are other young athletes like Pilidis, Kynigakis, Filtisakou and those on the men's water polo team who did not compete or did not finish yet.

 

Also it's very nice that a lot of our older athletes like Psarra, Douvalidis, Kokkalanis, Tsiamis, Filippidis etc. showed a desire to continue to Paris. I think we can have a big team in Paris, maybe even 150+ if rowing goes well and we make it in more team sports (women's water polo, men's basketball, maybe women's basketball).

 

Also Gkolomeev and Petrounias both expressed desire to win medals in Paris which is nice that they want to still compete at a high level.