Makedonas

Maria Hopefully she can qualify next month, but now she's had 4 quota matches and lost all of them (2023 World Championships semifinal, then bronze match, then Olympic quota match, now semifinal here...). She is 31 yo and planning to retire in Paris, which would be her 4th Olympics, hopefully she can make it there Of course she will be a big favourite for one of the last quotas, and also we don't know what will happen with RUS and BLR who each have a quota in her category already...

Fencing (1) Theodora Gkountoura (women's sabre)

Yes but in those sports there is always only 1 athlete per NOC, whereas in fencing you can either have 1 or have 3, but you can't have 2. So it's not the same situation. Well, Georgiadou seems to have gotten a lot of attention with her post, maybe it'll be like our women's water polo team's NQ in 2012 as 2011 World Championships which caused a change in the qualification system for the future of course it's a shame they always seem to come at Greece's expense though

Thanks @hckošice, weren't the 2020 ones played without fans though?

Now that you mention it there are probably a few other examples in sports like wrestling, judo, etc. where only 1 athlete per NOC is allowed no matter what (unlike fencing where you can either have 1 or 3 but not 2...)

Also last thing I will say for now (sorry for spamming this topic) is that a fencing medal could really change the sport in Greece and bring more attention and sponsors, so that makes it frustrating that we have two serious medal contenders but only one can compete. @phelps gave the great example of Italy in 2016 and that is pretty insane, and I don't want to "play the victim" but for us it means so much more in a way because fencing is so irrelevant in our country, and it feels like we are being denied the chance to make it relevant, while Italian fencing for example is so strong and historic that for them to experience this too is just such a different scenario. In Tokyo we had high expectations for Gkountoura and she crashed out in the first round, hopefully she can do better here...

Also so many of Georgiadou's rivals and also other notable fencers from other weapons commented on the posts, and many people are saying FIE should give her a wildcard, and that the system is unfair, and I approximately half of these people asking for wildcards are not even Greeks, so it's not just the case of "biased fans"

Our top two fencers are in the top 5 but our third girl is ranked 147 and then after that our next girl is 227. We are not a big fencing country, so it's actually a miracle that we have two girls somehow in the top 5. We have Kontochristopoulou in the women's foil ranked 86. No one else in any weapon or gender is top 100 (special shout out though to 18 yo Garyfallou who is ranked 102 in the women's foil ). The sport has grown since 2004 slowly I guess. I mean, I don't personally know anyone who has ever competed in fencing even at an amateur/recreational level unlike other sports, so I can't speak much about it, but since 2004 we had Vougiouka, Gkountoura, and Georgiadou all very successful, so the federation must be doing something right because for decades we won no medals and rarely qualified any fencers to the Olympics. As @phelps said, it is very hard to qualify as a European team. Our team made a serious effort the last few years and are ranked 12th which is much better than they were before this Olympic cycle but still they are very far from the top 5/6, and let's not forget this is without Russia who won gold at in Tokyo in the team event! Georgiadou seems like she will stay on until Los Angeles at least, she will be 37 yo. Gkountoura will be 31 so it's not a problem for her. The issue is finding a third fencer, though 15 yo Kourousi and 21 yo Mavrikaki have had some promising results (especially Kourousi for her age) so hopefully we can get a "decent" third sabre fencer and make a push to qualify for Los Angeles. I was saying for the past few years we should try to bring Vougiouka out of retirement, she was top 5 or so for some years and retired after Rio at 30 yo which is not that old in fencing, but it obviously never happened for Tokyo or Paris so I can't see it happening for Los Angeles, the more that time passes the less likely a comeback will be...

I don't think she was ever claiming the process is new or that she didn't expect it, because she was clearly familiar with this format as the number one Greek always qualified via ranking whether it was Vougiouka in 2016 or Gkountoura in 2020 and 2024. She wasn't ranked as high in those other ones but for 2020 she would've been one of the favourites at the continental qualification event but wasn't eligible to compete as Greece already had one quota via ranking. Gkountoura also gave an interview recently and said it is unlucky for Georgiadou. But for example can someone tell me in what other sport does someone who wins medals at World Championships in both 2022 and 2023 not qualify for Paris 2024?

Or what about letting her compete in the European qualification tournament? It could be like shooting where you can't get more than one quota per qualification event (at least I think that is the rule in shooting, I'm sure @phelps knows better than me).

I am not saying this is why we lost, we should always be able to win against a team like Georgia, who aside from their goalkeeper and Kvaratskhelia have mostly players who play for small clubs, I mean one of their defenders on Tuesday night plays for Panetolikos, which is one of the worst teams in the Greek Super League. We would never in a million years have a player in our starting 11 from a bottom table Greek club like that, yet here we are losing to a team that does... I agree the old system was better, I'm sure you know because Italy was also a victim of this format for 2022, but if anything maybe the matches should be at a neutral location instead of giving one team the home advantage? I'm curious to see statistics on how many home teams advanced since they implemented this new system.

Trust me, many Greeks used to have this mentality that it did not matter to qualify if we could not make a deep run (2004 spoiled us), and people would even say it was better if we didn't qualify to not embarrass ourselves (these are the same people today who say our tennis players suck and should retire because they haven't won slams yet, so yeah, really ignorant people but unfortunately they exist here). Well I think it is more embarrassing to not qualify than to qualify and lose in group stages (mind you we made knockouts of our last two major tournaments we participated in and people still complained about our team being "embarrassing" )

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5BL6CxMczW/?img_index=1 So many famous fencers commenting on this post, it's nice to see how they support each other! Poor Despina

Maybe for you guys it is laughable, you were in an easy group and struggled so much, and even against Wales did not have a shot on goal the entire 120 minutes and still qualified. For us we were in the toughest group, fought very hard in two games against France and one game against the Netherlands, won all games against the other teams, won our Nations League group, beat Kazakhstan 5-0 on Thursday, and had one poor game at Georgia where even though we didn't concede a goal, we could not score, and lost on penalties, and will not be at the Euros... So it's all about perspective, you think it is easy but for us it is not easy. The sad thing is we qualified for three consecutive Euros (2004, 2008, 2012) and made the quarterfinals or better in two of those, then they increased the amount of teams to 24 for the next three (2016, 2020, 2024) and we did not manage to qualify for any of them! 2016 was probably the worst as we were in a joke group and most of our Starting 11 played in the Champions League at that time and we've been in a massive slump ever since. On paper, there simply are not 24 teams better than us even if now we do not have as good players as we used to, we still should be qualifying for these tournaments, it's really a shame. I also had tickets for Euro 2024 but I guess it is time to resell. Another tournament watching from the couch...

One of the worst days in my sporting life, I honestly have no words...

Sakkari into the fourth round

5-0! An amazing night, with a full stadium, I'm so happy I made a last minute decision to go to Athens for the night

16 yo rower Achilleas Monastiriotis died in a car accident on his home island of Corfu, he previously was in training camp with our national team and was the national champion U14 in indoor rowing a few years ago.

Looks like we won't be competing at the World Relays, which means we won't try to send our women's 4 x 100 to the Olympics. I thought they had a real chance to sneak a quota, they are 21st, only less than half a second off the top 16, and with such a young team that has already improved a lot individually since last year, it is pretty crazy to not even try. Emmanouilidou improved her 100m PB from 11.44 in 2022 to 11.21 in 2023, and already in 2024 improved her 60m PB from 7.26 in 2023 to 7.24. Tsoukala improved her 100m PB from 11.83 in 2022 to 11.44 in 2023, and already in 2024 improved her 60m PB from 7.52 in 2023 to 7.39. Anastasiou improved her 100m PB from 11.54 in 2022 to 11.41 in 2023, and already in 2024 improved her 60m PB from 7.41 in 2022 to 7.37. Based on their performances this year in 60m, I would say it's pretty safe to say they are in good shape, not to mention the 4th member of the team would either be Spanoudaki or Pesiridou, both girls are older and with previous Olympic experience. I guess we'll have to wait until 2028 to see these girls, hopefully some of them can at least make it in individual events (Emmanouilidou really should for example).

Entries are out for the Piediluco Regatta: http://www.memorialdaloja.org/index.shtml Some surprises within the Greek team. We are sending two men's double sculls teams and breaking up Kalandaridis and Palaiopanos. They were in Final A at the 2022 Worlds but Palaiopanos got injured after and they were horrible in 2023, they finished in Final D at the 2023 Worlds so now Kalandaridis is teaming up with 17 yo Cholopoulos who is probably way too young to be able to qualify for Paris although his results have been impressive for his age. Women's double sculls we have a young inexperienced crew of 19 yo Asvesta and 16 yo Lykomitrou, meanwhile we have Fragkou and A.Kyridou each in the single sculls. I think it's strange when they are clearly better and it would make sense for the two of them to team up together in the double sculls (especially since only one will be able to compete in single sculls in Paris), but I'm not sure why M.Kyridou isn't here. The Kyridou sisters posted something cryptic after the internal regatta a few weeks ago which made it seem like they didn't make the national team, so now I'm pleasantly surprised to see that one of them at least made it, but it's weird at the same time, and for the first time ever (at least that I can remember) the federation didn't publish the results from the internal regatta, and one of their Tokyo Olympians who got 5th place didn't make the national team but "random" teenagers did?!

Great win for Maria over Gauff, though she almost choked it away

What a night for the teams! Olympiacos win 6-1 away (aet) to overcome a 1-4 loss in the first leg, and PAOK 5-1 at home after a 2-0 loss away against Dinamo Zagreb. Extra special that Dinamo Zagreb were eliminated from European competitions twice in the same season by Greek teams, after their fans killed a Greek fan and then celebrated it, and their club management blamed the Greek police instead of their own ridiculous hooligans...

Wait I think Kerber and Osaka have protected rankings in the 30s/40s, so like Andreescu, they'll also be in. So it's Wozniacki, Halep, and Raducanu for the two wildcards. Wozniacki is up to 129 in the live rankings now so if she can make the top 60/70 or so by the end of May, which is looking likely even though she's horrible on clay, then Halep just has to be top 400 to make it to Paris? Can someone confirm?

I agree, they will likely get an exception as there was no opportunity for them to play, and the ITF is very lenient. I mean Wozniacki has played for her country once since 2011 and still got to play Rio and I'm sure they would've let her play Tokyo if she didn't retire before. I am more interested to see what happens with the Grand Slam/legacy wildcard spots. I'm sure it won't matter for Venus Williams as she won't be in the top 4 Americans. Andreescu can use a protected ranking to get automatic entry to the Olympics. And I don't think Muguruza will be back before then (if ever). That leaves us with Wozniacki, Kerber, Halep, Osaka, and Raducanu. I don't think I'm missing anyone else? There are only two spots. Time is running out for these girls to get in directly, so in the end 3 of them could miss out...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks_in_Zimbabwe I know Wikipedia isn't the best source, but it says here that most of the Greeks in Zimbabwe came from Cyprus, so I guess it makes sense now @Olympian1010