Makedonas

Also really an incredible year for Olympiacos as a club, they now have a Final 4 in men's basketball, Final 4 in men's water polo, and semifinals in UEFA Conference League in men's football. They could potentially win 3 European trophies across 3 sports. Also the women's water polo team lost a few weeks ago in the final of the Champions League. I mean the men's basketball, men's water polo, and women's water polo teams are always one of Europe's best, but to have them all do it in the same year plus having the football team in their first European semifinal and very close to the final after their 2-4 away win in the first leg (we'll see what happens tomorrow) is very impressive even if it's not the top-tier competition.

First time since 2012 to have two teams in the Final Four! Actually only the 5th time ever (1994, 1995, 2009, 2012, 2024). I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened more but it seems like so many times we had one team make it but not two. Also Fenerbahce has three Greeks on the team, all are important players, and some Greeks on the coaching staff as well (even their head coach was Greek until they got rid of him a few months ago). Yet our senior national team has not qualified for the Olympics since 2008 and has not won a medal in any competition since Eurobasket 2009

Δύο χρόνια μετά και δε θα είναι καμία από αυτά τα χρυσά κορίτσια στην Ολυμπιακή μας ομάδα... Η Γκόγκου σπουδάσει πλέον στο Yale και παράλληλα είναι μέλος της κωπηλατικής ομάδας εκεί (όπου είναι και η Μπορμπου) οπότε μάλλον κάποια στιγμή θα επιστρέψει στην εθνική. Το ίδιο ισχύει για την Δαλίδου που θα αρχίσει το επόμενο εξάμηνο στο Harvard όπου είναι ήδη και η Παπαϊωαννου Χριστίνα. Η Ασβεστα συμμετέχει στα κοινόβια της εθνικής αλλά η ομοσπονδία αποφάσισε να μην στέλνει ομάδα διπλό σκιφ γυναικών στην Προολυμπιακή ρεγκάτα, μάλλον θα την δούμε στο Παγκόσμιο Κ23 τουλάχιστον (το ίδιο πιστεύω για τις Γκόγκου και Δαλίδου...). Οι Αργυράκη και Νάτσιούλα φαίνεται να έχουν σταματήσει το άθλημα δυστυχώς, ούτε τρέχουν στα πανελλήνια. Η Αργυράκη έχει από το Οκτώβρη του 2022 να συμμετέχει σε κοινόβιο της εθνικής και η Νάτσιούλα από το Δεκέμβρη του 2022. Κρίμα...

Να δούμε τώρα τι θα αποφασίσει ο αδερφός του...

Wow, I did not notice it had been that many years for them!

Happy Easter to all Orthodox! and anyone else who celebrates!

I was reading that no away team has ever won a Game 5!

Olympiacos one step closer to a historic first European final, and it would be played in Athens also Really, really massive for Greek football. Would be the first European final for a Greek football club in 53 years! Let's hope they don't mess up the second leg...

Olympiacos really should've won Game 3, the referees made some questionable decisions but also Olympiacos had chances and blew several leads at the end of the game and first overtime period that seemed quite certain. Let's see what happens in Game 5...

Bitados went down so much

They made a big effort with Paizi and Mpenou, they were not able to become decent enough in 3 years, it's not so easy to rise so quickly, especially because we are a very small fencing country, and that should not be Georgiadou's responsibility. I know the Spanish girl (who is also a fantastic fencer and deserves to be in Paris) got the quota from this since Georgiadou couldn't take it, so I also understand that you would defend this qualification process. It just makes zero sense that in fencing you can qualify 1 athlete or 3 but not 2. And anyways, the 1976 gold medalist giving Kharlan a wildcard against the qualification process (which only happened less than one year ago, not three years ago) opened the door for things like this to happen. No one is saying that they changed the rules at the last minute and we didn't know (the same thing happened with Georgiadou for Tokyo although she wasn't ranked as high, but you keep saying that we didn't read the qualification process, obviously we did), but if they are allowing other exceptions then why shouldn't our federation try it? I think it's unlikely to be successful but at least it can draw attention and maybe cause a change in the future.

https://www.gazzetta.gr/xifaskia/olympiakoi-agones/2323011/despoina-georgiadoy-epistoli-tis-omospondias-xifaskias-gia-na This article is almost three weeks old, but our fencing federation is requesting a wildcard or reallocation spot for Georgiadou and using Bach giving Kharlan a wildcard as an example... Of course I doubt it will make a difference. We knew for the past few years that something like this would probably happen and that one of our two girls would miss out on the Olympics, maybe a change could've been made if they didn't wait until the end to complain about it.

Some very promising results from some of our Greek youngsters yesterday: In the men's hammer throw, where we already have Anastasakis and Frantzeskakis 99% qualified for Paris, and I was hoping Zaltos or Ntousakis could join them, now we had 19 yo Mantzouranis improve his PB from 73.85 to 75.55 (and before this season he only had 70.71), 20 yo Polychroniou improved his PB from 72.98 (from last week) to 75.24. Also 20 yo Korakidis improved his PB from 70.97 to 72.03. In the men's discus, 20 yo Pavlidis, who set our men's NR out of nowhere last year with 64.90 despite never going over 59m in other competitions, is now getting back to that level and showing it wasn't a fluke, with 59.69 earlier this month, then 60.68 last week, and now 63.72 yesterday! 63.72 still would've been our NR had he not gotten it last year. In the women's pole vault, 23 yo Adamopoulou achieved a new PB of 4.50 after her previous PB was 4.37 indoors from 2021 (and 4.25 outdoors from 2020). She was really promising for us a few years ago and had some injury problems but it's good to see her back at a high level, she had 4.35 indoors this year so who knows, maybe she can even sneak into our Olympic team if Kyriakopoulou can't take the third spot. Then we also had 15 yo Boumpoulidi with a new PB of 4.25 (she had 4.20 indoors this year and 4.00 outdoors from last year).

Go Yoana! You can do it!

Ο Πετρούνιας είναι πρωταθλητής Ευρώπης για 7η φορά στην καριέρα του

Η Τελτσίδου κατέκτησε το αργυρό μετάλλιο στο Ευρωπαϊκό Πρωτάθλημα

Petrounias won gold for the 7th time

2024 European Rowing Championships Silver: Evangelia Anastasiadou and Christina Bourmpou (women's pair) Zoi Fitsiou and Dimitra Kontou (women's lightweight double sculls) Stefanos Ntouskos (men's single sculls)

Pretty good regatta for us with 3 medals after only sending 5 boats, even though last year we won 4 medals. LW2X with silver for the second year in a row, really great result for them and hopefully they can take an Olympic quota. It's crazy that Kontou is still just 18 yo! W2- nice to win silver also, Bourmpou winning another European Championships medal after 4 years, she is still young, only 23. Also third year in a row that Anastasiadou wins a European Championships silver, she did it in 2022 in W1X, in 2023 in LW2X, and now in 2024 in W2-, she is still only 22 yo! M1X solid for Ntouskos to win silver again for the third year in a row, Zeidler is too good. M2X finishing 6th is really good, especially since Cholopoulos is just 17 yo! Hopefully they can contend for an Olympic quota, this was a very promising result for them. M2- 15th is disappointing, these two had very good U19/U23 results but it's been a few years now and they still haven't developed into good seniors. We won bronze in LM2X last year but didn't send that crew this year, I'm not sure why but hopefully they are okay and will be at the qualification regatta because they are among the main favourites for that quota! Also we did not send W1X or W2X, I guess they are still figuring out the crews for the qualification regatta, or maybe some girls are injured.

In Greece too

Honestly I think it already has hit us. For example, our athletics and swimming teams we would send to the Olympics used to be bigger or the same size as now, even though now we are way stronger in those sports than we were in say 2008/2012/2016. And look at weightlifting, the reduction of quotas made it so hard and finally for Paris we failed to qualify for the first time in a million years, even though I'd argue Greek weightlifting is slightly stronger now than it was in 2012, 2016, or 2020, when we actually had an athlete qualify each time. Sailing is another one, though we are definitely at a low point right now, this will be our smallest Olympic sailing team since 1980. It's very possible that the quota reduction is a factor for that (but there are also other factors in Greek sailing which I won't get into). And at the same time, we haven't been making any progress in the new sports like breaking, skateboarding, or surfing for example, so we don't get any quotas there.

Sad, but at least he had the chance at the European qualification tournament. The same might happen with Ilieva in a few hours, hopefully not, we will see. Georgiadou is 5th (!!!) in the women's sabre, won medals at the World Championships in both 2022 and 2023, won many other medals during that time, but doesn't get to qualify via ranking even though she is the second-highest ranked European (because another Greek is ranked higher, so someone from another country who is ranked below Georgiadou gets the quota instead), and on top of that Georgiadou doesn't get to compete in the European qualification tournament because apparently it's fine for some countries to have 3 fencers in the individual event but God forbid Greece sends two fencers to Paris in the same weapon it would be "bad for the development of the sport" and "decreases diversity" as one other NOC would miss out in the event, because apparently Greece is so important in fencing these days that we must give up one of our spots to another country so they can also be represented. I don't want to seem insensitive (I fully support Ukraine) and I know these are different situations, but they were able to magically add another quota and give Kharlan a wildcard here, so I guess the athlete quotas are only strict when they want them to be?

But in fencing there is the ranking, so technically there are many chances to gain points towards an Olympic quota, though of course there are too few spots for this.

Of course as a Greek I am bitter about it, and I feel I have every right to be. I'm sure many of you in my position would also feel this way, I mean some of you even feel this way about fencers ranked much lower who had opportunities to qualify and didn't. Georgiadou really had no chance to qualify unless she was ranked 1 or 2 Greece hasn't won a fencing medal since 1896, it's not like we are some fencing powerhouse. Georgiadou winning an Olympic medal could honestly change the sport in the country. Don't those in charge want to grow the sport, or they just want to keep it amongst the same big countries? I guess that's how it is being a medium-sized European country, it's just so much harder to get Olympic quotas in many sports where there are few spots reserved for Europeans. Not big enough to consistently compete with the likes of Germany, France, Italy etc., and not small enough to get all the universality/tripartite places...

I've discussed it many times here to the point where I think people are tired of it, but since we are staying on this topic, it is absolutely ridiculous that Despina Georgiadou is unable to qualify for the Olympics as a top 5 fencer because Greece doesn't have a good third fencer. If she was number one for Greece, she'd qualify. If she was number three for Greece, she'd qualify. But as number two? No. Why do the NOCs qualified for the team event get to send three fencers to the individual competition, but all other NOCs are capped at one fencer?!