Makedonas

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

I was just making a joke, sorry if it was tasteless

This the same Hungary that now says Eurovision is "too gay" ?

I was thinking that if Croatia wins, maybe some of those Balkan countries would come back next year

The jury vote not always, the tele vote usually except some years we are in different semis and only one made the final, or 2015 when neither gave each other 12 points, though that was in the old system, Greece did get first place from the Cyprus public (the singer was also from Cyprus), but Cyprus I believe got 3rd from the Greek public (the song was extremely boring so if there was one year for Greece to not vote for Cyprus, it was then).

They have not done anywhere near as well as they did when they first joined, hopefully this means they will stop soon. I'd rather have them out and bring back

We've had a bunch of disappointments in this Olympic qualification so far in various sports, but if Prevolaraki doesn't qualify then I think that will be the first big shock NQ for us And honestly I don't think it will happen, she was 1 win away from the quota three times already before this week, and lost each time, and now it will be very difficult for her to get 3 consecutive wins in the repechage to get the quota... She said she would've retired after Tokyo if she won a medal, she didn't, so then she said she would go to Paris and end her career there regardless of if she won a medal or not, and did very well in 2022 and 2023, but now she probably won't even qualify for Paris

Freshman Angelos Mantzouranis of Minnesota won the Big 10 Championships today in the men's hammer throw with 75.15, a new CR, after the previous one was from Konstantinos Zaltos last year with 74.93. Zaltos is graduating this year but didn't compete as he is already in Greece fighting for an Olympic spot. We will see tomorrow Nikolaos Polychroniou of USC in the Pac 12 Championships, hopefully for another gold medal, he has a SB of 75.24 from two weeks ago. The race for the third and final spot on the Greek Olympic team for the men's hammer throw is really heating up, as Frantzeskakis and Anastasakis are most likely taking the first two spots.

Very ironic coming from Turkey of all countries, as they have caused many many "humanitarian tragedies" in the last 110 years or so, and continue to do so. It's an interesting move though for them to take the lead, and I only ask that others start holding Turkey/Erdogan to the same standards. It is only fair!