Makedonas

We will miss this sport for the first time in 68 years

This is exactly what I was saying earlier, and people complained, but they bent the rules for Kharlan so now this really opened the door to this, now everyone is going to expect them to change the rules and give them wildcards too.

I think it's way too optimistic to predict that 6 countries will return, unfortunately. I think getting 2-3 more would be a step in the right direction. Also, I doubt Sweden will withdraw unless there is some sort of mass withdrawal which includes many countries.

"We had 2 in Tokyo, I think both will make it again" Neither of them ended up making it , and our final number for Paris is 2 and not 3-4 as I predicted

took their "spot" it seems, they got 3 here, and they have Gega in athletics, so 4 quotas total so far and only 1 is actually Albanian

She placed better in TOISC than in ESC

This streak was so underrated, and to do it as a non-Big 5 country in an era where Eurovision regularly had 40+ competing countries And in 2012 we were top 10 in televoting but the juries killed Eleftheria, and also Cyprus having a similar type of song and doing well also probably took a lot of votes both from our diaspora and from people who like that type of music. And in 2013 we made top 10 again, so it really could've been 10 years

We lost by 6 in Eindhoven We lost our way in the second part of the first period, where we led 5-6 and then went down 10-6. Then we were down 26-16 and 29-20 and launched a mini-comeback, with the final score being 31-25. Congratulations @heywoodu@CCB@Dennis

Rebecca Sramkova comes from qualifying to the 4th round of the main draw in WTA 1000 Rome, and now she is up to 87 in the live WTA rankings @hckošice

No, she played Rybakina in Madrid

Polychroniou got 2nd with 74.58, really I think the 3rd Olympic spot will be between Mantzouranis and Zaltos at this point, ironically they are both teammates at the University of Minnesota. And Pavlidis won the discus at the Big 12 Championships with 61.52. He is making a big push for the Olympics via rankings, so winning the Greek National Championships with a throw around 63m would be huge for him, as well as a good result at the NCAA Championships. I don't know if he will go to the Balkan Championships as they are so early this year and before the NCAA, but really he should as there are a lot of points there for the ranking for a good placing, but I don't know if he will go to Europe, then back to the US, then back to Europe again...

is not one of my personal favourites but I am used to my favourite songs not winning anyways, and I wasn't crazy about most of the other songs that did really well so I am okay with this result. Part of me wanted to see win, to bring Eurovision back to the Balkans, even though I didn't really like their song. Ironically I loved many of their songs in the past which didn't even qualify for the final, like Mizerja in 2013, Crazy in 2018, and Tick-Tock in 2021, but now they got their best result ever and I didn't like it Also I remember not too long ago and both used to struggle a lot just to qualify for the final, and winning seemed impossible, and at times it was also the same for other recent winners like , so it really shows that there is hope for everyone in the end as long as you keep trying!

Public Votes: 12- 10- 8- 7- 6- 5- 4- 3- 2- 1- I was a bit surprised that didn't get anything, mainly due to their big diaspora here, but they were actually 11th in our public vote.

11th place for us in the end was disappointing, I didn't really expect to finish outside the top 10 (thanks juries ) and I'm not sure where we go from here, because Marina is pretty big in Greece and many Greeks (including myself) always thought she'd be perfect for Eurovision. We haven't reached the top 5 since 2008 (although we've been in the top 10 many times since then). It's also weird to think that Stefania (2021) and Amanda (2022) got Greece in the top 10 but not Marina considering the hype she had how unique she was and how heavily favoured she was in the odds to finish around 5th-8th or so. It's also ridiculous how no matter what, will always finish in the top 10 year after year, they always seem to be heavily favoured by the juries as are

I'm sorry but that's very far form the truth, the last time we sent a song that could've sounded Greek was 2018, and that was a ballad and not a pop song. Anything we sent after then until now sounded like it could've been from any country And before that we didn't send anything like that since 2013, and possibly 2016 if you count that. So it's not really "most years" but in the 2000s and until 2013 we did it very often so maybe you are thinking of those years?

That was truly a joke, I thought it was by far the worst performance of the night and I was glad it got 0 points from the tele vote. I was so annoyed that was above and after the jury vote.

Silent majority

And they gave us 7, I guess we have to mix it up every now and then so it's not too suspicious Crap song? Most of the countries and ROW gave us tele voting points, and we were 8th in tele vote, so your opinion is not what the majority of people think clearly

Yes I agree, this is definitely having a negative impact on Greece too!

And another funny thing is Greek-American Helen Maroulis wanted to compete for Greece after London 2012 because she didn't make the USA team, and her grandparents still live in Greece, and she had some paperwork issues and the Greek wrestling federation didn't help her (though it might have been different people in charge as it was so long ago), and she ended up staying with USA and won gold in Rio and bronze in Tokyo. So we couldn't help her yet we help Kurugliev easily get citizenship when he has no connection to Greece...

Yes, I just always hated when other countries did it so for us to do it is kind of sad for me. But also we have Kougioumtsidis who wanted to do 86 kg (from 79 kg, so he was in the middle of the two weights) but then our wrestling federation naturalised Kurugliev last year so Kougioumtsidis went down to 74 kg, and he still got the quota there anyways which I am happy about of course. It's just strange that Pilidis who was a very good freestyle wrestler, was only 21 when he competed in Tokyo (65 kg), left the sport shortly after that and the federation did not care, yet they support Kurugliev and then will paint this picture that everything is perfect when he wins medals for Greece, meanwhile they drove one of our best talents ever to switch sports to MMA because they did not support him (Pilidis also made mistakes with some statements he made on Greek reality shows about the federation)

Thank you both @Benolympique @Josh although I don't really celebrate this quota, Kurugliev is not Greek in my opinion...

Wrestling +1 Dauren Kurugliev (men's -86 kg)

Orshush withdrew also, so the Uzbek girl would've been a very good opponent for Maria to face in the final had she made it. But at the 2023 World Championships, Maria lost in the semifinals where a win would've given her the Olympic quota, then lost in the bronze medal match where a win would've given her the Olympic quota, then lost in the Olympic wrestle-off where a win would've given her the Olympic quota, then at the 2024 European Qualification tournament she lost in the semifinals where a win would've given her the Olympic quota. Girls she beat in some of these events and the 2024 European Championships like Ana, Dragutan, Malysheva will all be going to Paris, but Maria won't. She just didn't step up when she needed to, now is when we wish the wrestling rankings were used for quotas She was 1 win away from the quota 4 times (!!!) before this week and even still she couldn't do it...

What a horrible way for Maria Prevolaraki to end her career Thank you for being the best Greek female wrestler ever. 3 Olympic games, 3 medals World Championships, 8 medals in European Championships, 3 times gold medalist at Mediterranean Games