Makedonas

Panathinaikos wins! It was great to see a Greek team win after many years, and Sloukas with 24 points in 25 minutes, hopefully he can bring that level to the national team this summer because we will need him.

Huge result in decathlon at the Balkan Championships, 24 yo Angelos Andreoglou improves his PB from 7676 at last year's Balkan Championships to 7926 to win gold This is now second all-time in Greece (NR is 8069 from a million years ago). Andreoglou now passed Alexandros Spyridonidis who had 7917 in 2022 as a 24 yo, and seemed to be the one who was going to take the NR, but has had injury problems since then. Andreoglou had PBs today in the shot put, discus, and 1500. Suddenly it seems like he can make the European Championships (as I'm sure there will also be a lot of withdrawals due to it being an Olympic year), and with a good score/result there (which is possible considering his form and the higher level of competition), maybe he can even make it to the Olympics...

The EHF European Cup final second leg was played yesterday in Greece. Although Olympiacos lost on penalties, over 7500 fans showed up. This is big for Greek handball, as I doubt we ever had that many people at a handball match in Greece aside from Athens 2004. Of course most of the people there are fans of the football club and probably had never seen handball live before, but once the news broke that the club's handball team made a European final, people started to get interested so they moved the venue into a bigger one.

Too bad we couldn't have an all-Greek final, but hopefully Panathinaikos can bring the title back to Greece! It will be the first Greek title in Euroleague since 2013, and their first one as a club since 2011!

We have our cup final today, Panathinaikos vs Aris Thessaloniki. If Aris win, it'll be their first cup since 1970, and the last time they won the league was 1946! They have one of the top 5 fanbases in Greece so it'll be pretty big if they pull it off. Their fans have waited many many years. The league ended last week and it was probably the most exciting it's ever been. PAOK won, AEK Athens 2nd, Olympiacos 3rd, Panathinaikos 4th, and Aris 5th. These are also the five biggest teams in Greece historically and with fan support. The top 4 were still in the hunt for the league title with 2 matchdays left, and on the last matchday it was between PAOK and AEK, with PAOK winning 1-2 away in a derby with a late goal at Aris, their main rivals as they are the two big clubs of Thessaloniki. And we still have Olympiacos in the Conference League final next week, so yeah, exciting times for Greek football just too bad our national team is hitting historic lows...

Yeah he probably wasn't feeling well, and maybe two races in one day was too much for him to handle if he was sick or has a small injury, obviously normally he would breeze through both races. He also DNS today in Final D...

Tokyo was our first time not qualifying in RG since 1984, now it looks like we won't qualify yet again and will then get the last quotas and and will miss out.

Good start for in the group event

And in the flag ceremony it says "South Cyprus" with the flag...

Also it is ridiculous how the Balkan Championships have become, Cyprus is not Balkan but I can sort of see the connections due to the Greekness of Cyprus. However, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Malta, Austria, Ukraine??? Definitely not Balkan countries.

At World Cup II, Ntouskos won his heat but then finished last in his quarterfinal a few hours later, behind the likes of Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe! I think it might've had something to do with having two races in the same day, hopefully he will be fine for the Olympics as he just won silver at the European Championships, and in those events you don't race twice in one day. Our women's pair were 2nd in their heat (clearly behind ), now 2nd in their semifinal (clearly behind ), so not looking good for an Olympic medal after they were clearly behind at the European Championships. We will see tomorrow in the final how they race against and . Anyways they have shown they should definitely make the final in Paris so that should be their goal and then from there anything is possible really Also it's possible the other crews are "peaking too soon" but I don't think so because these are the same crews who finished above our girls at the Worlds last year (plus who it seems we are clearly better than now).

Scandal right now at the Balkan Championships, held in Turkey, the official live stream just showed a graphic " Olivia Fotopoulou" on screen...

No, they already got host quota via reallocation.

Looks like the groups quota will be between There are other countries as well but realistically it will be one of these three, the others are much weaker.

Cyprus just giving citizenship to all Russians these days it seems, at this rate they'll outnumber Greek Cypriots one day...

Well we only have 7 boats, so it's a decent amount but could be more. I expect medals in M1X, M2-, M2X, W2-, W2X. Not sure about M4- and W4X as we have a bunch of new athletes I don't know about.

Panagiota Lytra really messed this up

Entries are out for the European U19 Championships: https://worldrowing.com/event/2024-european-rowing-under-19-championships/ No , which isn't much of a surprise.

I guess we need a topic for rowing fans to argue about who is in deeper crisis Not that we are better off, but at least the two quotas for us at this regatta kind of saved us from having an embarrassingly tiny team like we did in Tokyo.

So no M2X for us, I hope they don't get discouraged and that Kalandaridis sticks around for Los Angeles. Cholopoulos we will still see at the European U19s in a few weeks We will have 7 rowers in Paris, definitely not as many as we expected but considering how much of a disaster the World Championships were last year, I guess we can't complain. We only had 4 in Tokyo so it is an improvement even if we are not back at our London/Rio levels yet in terms of team size.

Rowing +4 Zoi Fitsiou and Dimitra Kontou (women's lightweight double sculls) Petros Gkaidatzis and Antonios Papakonstantinou (men's lightweight double sculls)

Yes, well, we have LW2X and LM2X which will not be part of the Olympic programme anymore, but we also have W2- where Anastasiadou used to be a lightweight, and M1X where Ntouskos used to be a lightweight, so there is hope that maybe some of these can still be successful in rowing after Paris.

I'm happy and relieved we were able to get these two lightweight quotas! These crews really deserved it. Also happy two of them are from my city (Fitsiou and Gkaidatzis)! Great for Kontou to go to the Olympics as an 18 yo, as of now she is the youngest Greek qualified in any sport, though Cholopoulos who is 17 yo will have a chance in about 10 minutes in M2X. Sad that Fragkou didn't make it, she had a great Olympic cycle at the U19 and U23 levels but clearly isn't getting good enough results at the senior level yet. She is still just 21 so hopefully she will be more ready for Los Angeles

Congrats to you too! @Benolympique Hopefully, we can share some lightweight podiums together in Paris

Couldn't have asked for a better start for the LW2X. They won their heat to qualify directly for the final, finishing 4.6 seconds above Australia who will now have to race in the repechage. In the other heat, France finished 14 seconds ahead of Italy. So as of now, Greece and France are the clear favourites to qualify although I still wouldn't count out Italy as they are the defending Olympic champions. Also pleased with our LM2X, finishing second in their heat and qualifying directly for the final, just .66 seconds behind France who are the big favourites. As in the LW2X, it seems that Greece and France are the clear favourites for the quota. I am unfortunately no longer optimistic about M2X. They did okay to finish 2nd in their heat and qualify for the semis, but were 8 seconds behind USA. And with the last minute new Serbian crew, I think it will be very tough to get the quota. But let's see, anything can happen in the final. Fragkou has a very small chance in W1X and now we can pretty much kiss that quota goodbye. Finishing 3rd in her heat won't cut it, and it's a shame as I really think she could've qualified if we sent her in W2X. Hopefully she sticks around for LA and can make it, she's still only 21 yo. 3rd for our men's pair in their heat. We knew they had no chance to get a quota anyways. It'll be a huge success if they can even make the final.