Makedonas

I'm sure you also didn't expect the win vs USA last year, so Italy definitely still has a good chance at getting this quota (unfortunately for us )

I don't know. In her case she is unlucky that the last Olympics were in 2021 and not 2020, as she would've otherwise been eligible. Anyways, this is the decision she chose to make and she said from Day 1 that she knew Greece would probably not agree to let her go and she accepted missing the 2024 Games if it came down to that, so she clearly knows she is not entitled to participate in the Olympics for a random country (I mean that in the nicest possible way but let's be honest she has nothing to do with Portugal). Her issues with our sailing federation were well documented for years, and she says our Olympic committee knew and did nothing about it and only tried to help once she said she was looking for another country instead, and at that point she made her decision to leave (even though she still did not know to which country she would go to). Still, I think she should have given it one more chance because our Olympic committee actually was willing to help her (and it's not like we have anyone else in ILCA 6 who can challenge her for the quota), and for an athlete to make this decision knowing she will miss the Olympics is a big deal, although she clearly had her reasons for it.

If we end up playing each other for the spot (which is the most likely scenario as and are big favourites to reach the final), then I must point out that we won our last three matches with Italy. So naturally we are due for a loss to them, so I guess we'll miss the quota We beat Italy 10-4 in January 2021 at the Olympic Qualification Tournament, 12-9 in September 2022 at the European Championships, and 16-12 in July 2023 at the World Championships. Anyways, next we are facing Spain who we have not beaten since the 2018 European Championships. Since then, we played them four times with three losses and one draw...So it's hard to be optimistic...

I think Diana Shnaider, the other Russian teen in the top 100, also has liked several Instagram posts supporting the invasion.

It has been said for the past two years that she would probably not be able to compete at the 2024 Olympics because our Olympic committee needed to "agree" to the switch or something. I'm not familiar with this process but it seems that as long as she doesn't have our approval, she will have to wait until Los Angeles 2028. The president of our Olympic committee said that they are not going to help her compete for another country. Of course there is still time for her to qualify as a Greek athlete and compete at the Olympics if she qualifies in one of the upcoming regattas under our flag, and our Olympic committee has made it clear that they will "support" her if she chooses to do so, but she has made it clear that she would rather skip these Olympics than compete for Greece. FYI she has had issues since 2017 with our sailing federation and after the Tokyo Olympics she said she had enough.

At least there is still plenty of time to complete qualifying though. Forecast also looks great. Should not be an issue in the end.

If we qualify, Greece vs Turkey in Germany could be quite dangerous with tensions between the two nations and such a large Turkish community in Germany...

Not sure if this is supposed to be Despina Georgiadou or Theodora Gkountoura

Only chance to win a medal in a new sport is basketball, but I think we'll just be happy to qualify first. Fencing and tennis we haven't won medals since 1896, so medals in those sports will basically be new sports at this point Also in water polo both our men and women have won Olympic medals, but no gold. For a medal in a new event, I guess there are a lot of them. Men's team (basketball), women's sabre (fencing), women's 70 kg (judo), women's pair (rowing), women's double sculls (rowing), men's skeet (shooting), women's skeet (shooting), mixed skeet (shooting), women's singles (tennis), mixed doubles (tennis), women's 53 kg (wrestling), men's 74 kg freestyle (wrestling). 1988 was the last time we did not win a medal in a new event so I guess it's quite likely to win a medal in at least one of these.

2024 United Cup - Group B: Greece 1 - 2 Chile Maria Sakkari GRE d. Daniela Seguel CHI 6-0 6-1 Nicolas Jarry CHI d. Stefanos Sakellaridis GRE 6-3 3-6 7-5 Seguel/Barrios Vera CHI d. Sakkari/S.Tsitsipas GRE 6-7(5) 6-3 10-6 2024 United Cup - Group B: Greece 3 - 0 Canada Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Steven Diez CAN 6-2 6-3 Maria Sakkari GRE d. Leylah Fernandez CAN 7-6(2) 6-3 Papamichail/P.Tsitsipas GRE d. Fung/Auger-Aliassime CAN 7-5 6-4 2024 United Cup - Quarterfinals: Greece 1 - 2 Germany Maria Sakkari GRE d. Angelique Kerber GER 6-0 6-3 Alexander Zverev GER d. Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE 6-4 6-4 Siegemund/Zverev GER d. Sakkari/P.Tsitsipas GRE 6-3 6-3

Also, the men's water polo team won the team award which is deserved. Other finalists in the team category were AEK Athens FC (they won the league and cup titles), and Olympiacos BC (they won the league, cup, Super Cup, and were runners-up in EuroLeague where they embarrassingly choked a comfortable lead against Real Madrid in the final minutes of the game).

For the second year in a row, we had Tentoglou and Drisbioti win. For me, Tentoglou is totally deserved. He won gold at the European indoors and World outdoors and is clearly the best long jumper in the world. The other finalists were Petrounias and Ntouskos, which to me doesn't make much sense. Petrounias won silver at the worlds and bronze at the Europeans, while Ntouskos missed the podium at the worlds but won silver at the Europeans. This time, no Antetokounmpo or Tsitsipas. Actually, Tsitsipas was 9th despite making a GS final. Men's skeet world champion Mitas was only 4th in the voting. In my opinion, he should've been a finalist over Ntouskos. However, I can live with these results. Drisbioti winning for the women is completely a joke. Sure, she had a solid year, but is she really the best we had in women's sport? She won bronze in 35km at the World Championships, which is not even an Olympic event. Then she won gold at the European race walking cup and set national records in 20km and indoor 3km, but it's ridiculous that she won now two years in a row without winning a World Championships medal in an Olympic event. Korakaki and Ntountounaki were the other finalists. Korakaki makes sense as she won a World Championships silver and European Championships gold in Olympic events. Ntountounaki though? She won gold and bronze at the European short course championships. Not fair to girls like Katzouraki (7th place), Gkountoura (11th place), Georgiadou (14th place) who won World Championship medals in Olympic events. So ridiculous how they weren't even close to being finalists. I'm not surprised though, Drisbioti and Ntountounaki always get some favoritism in these awards because they are popular with journalists. It's a shame that Georgiadou the last two years was not a finalist for this award despite being a World Championships medalist each year. In 2023 she also won gold medals in Grand Prix and World Cup events but gets no love. To make things worse, she is 95% not going to the Olympics yet again because of the one fencer per country rule if you don't qualify a team

2023 European U21 Championships: GOLD: Men's +87 kg - Sotiris Michopoulos BRONZE: Men's +87 kg - Filippos Dimitrakopoulos Men's - 54 kg - Konstantinos Dimitropoulos

2023 European U22 Boxing Championships: BRONZE: Antonia Giannakopoulou (Women's -52 kg) Stelios Kirsanidis (Men's -63.5 kg)

ATP Rankings - Top 5 Singles: 6. Stefanos Tsitsipas 416. Stefanos Sakellaridis 756. Alexandros Skorilas 1267. Demetris Azoides 1270. Markos Kalovelonis ATP Rankings - Top 5 Doubles: 97. Petros Tsitsipas 113. Stefanos Tsitsipas 247. Markos Kalovelonis 266. Michail Pervolarakis 286. Stefanos Sakellaridis WTA Rankings - Top 5 Singles: 8. Maria Sakkari 215. Despina Papamichail 222. Valentini Grammatikopoulou 278. Sapfo Sakellaridi 317. Martha Matoula WTA Rankings - Top 5 Doubles: 94. Despina Papamichail 114. Valentini Grammatikopoulou 163. Sapfo Sakellaridi 308. Eleni Christofi 410. Martha Matoula

2024 Women's European Water Polo Championship: Group A: 14 - 12 25 - 8 2024 Men's European Water Polo Championship: Group B: 10 - 8 8 - 15

Equestrian +1 Ioli Mytilineou (individual jumping)

Well, that was quite disappointing...

It will be very tough for us. Also home teams very rarely qualify from OQT, though we did it in 2008 (which was the last time we hosted and coincidentally the last time we qualified for OG)...

Solid start for our boys with a 10-8 win against Hungary! Revenge for losing to them on penalties in the World Championships final last year We already qualified for Paris 2024 so there should be no pressure on us, and although we have an Olympic medal and four World Championships medals (and even four World League medals!), surprisingly our men's team has never won a European Championships medal! So the goal here is obviously to finally win a European medal. It would be a bonus if it's gold because we've never won a gold medal in anything at the senior level.

Great start for our girls with a 14-12 win over Hungary. Giannopoulou was the unlikely hero with 4 goals, she is someone who we normally don't even expect to play much. We also won 25-8 today against Croatia which was expected. As the Netherlands and Spain are already qualified, it is between for the one Olympic ticket here (and the other two will have a chance at next month's World Championships). Also I want to mention that 35 yo Alexandra Asimaki is in our team, she is back after retiring in 2020, having a baby, becoming a coach, then becoming a player again and now she is here. Her inclusion in our team was important since Maria Myriokefalitaki got injured and can't compete.

Well done to Mytilineou! Our first time participating in equestrian at the Olympics since 2004