Makedonas

2024 World Rowing U19 Championships Gold: Nikolaos Cholopoulos and Konstantinos Giannoulis (men's double sculls) Gavriela Lioliou and Varvara Lykomitrou (women's double sculls) Panagiotis Makrygiannis (men's single sculls) Silver: Nefeli Ntara and Dimitra Papaioannou (women's pair)

They both won gold M2X basically dominated the whole race, and Cholopoulos ends his U19 career with his first world title, after getting bronze in M4X in 2022, silver in M2X in 2023, and finally gold in M2X in 2024 M1X was tricky, Makrygiannis after a disappointing silver last year was 3rd for most of the race, then put on an incredible sprint (he was 6.34 seconds behind the leader after 1500m) to win gold . He is young enough that he'll get the chance to defend his title next year as well Now we'll see who will win the U19 medal count. each with 3 golds. Greece and Italy each have 1 silver also, but Italy won one of their golds and their silver in a non-Olympic category. Romania also has a good chance to win another gold in W1X...

2024 World Rowing Championships Silver: Zoi Fitsiou (women's lightweight single sculls) Antonios Papakonstantinou (men's lightweight single sculls)

Good to see our two silvers yesterday in LW1X and LM1X. So, all 4 of our Paris Olympians who competed here ended up with medals . Just too bad the lightweight events won't be part of the Olympic programme anymore, but what a way for us to go out! U19 finals day today. We only sent 5 boats and they all made finals W2- won silver which I am quite happy with M2- got 5th which is disappointing after they were 1st in the heat. I wonder why they changed up this combo after we got silver at the European U19s earlier this year with Karagiannis/Koutras and then here sent Bourkas/Koutsogiannis instead... W2X just won gold with an amazing sprint finish. They were clearly 2nd the whole race, with GB being the clear 1st, and then at 1500m, GB led by 3.51 seconds and we ended up winning by 5.92 seconds after 2000m I'd be pretty surprised if we don't win medals in our remaining two finals, M2X and M1X. Honestly we are probably favourites to win gold in both events so hopefully there are no surprises

After Tokyo, I don't think anyone would've expected and to be anywhere near a podium in artistic swimming in Paris Also happy for our girls finishing 6th, our previous best-ever finishes were 8th in the duet in 2012 and also 8th in the team in 2004, so our best ever Olympic result in this sport 4th place for the Alexandri sisters, well it would've felt like a "lost medal" for us if they reached the podium so

2024 World Rowing U23 Championships Gold: Evangelia Anastasiadou and Dimitra Kontou (women's lightweight double sculls)

U23 Championships are already finished. Only 1 medal for us, but it was a gold in LW2X for Anastasiadou/Kontou, who defended their title from last year Also in the heat they broke their own U23 world best time by 8.65 seconds. Of course Kontou won bronze in LW2X at Paris 2024 and Anastasiadou was 6th in W2- there, I know she seemed bitter that she wasn't selected for LW2X where we would've probably had a stronger team and maybe pushed for another colour of medal (though very difficult because GB and Romania were so strong), but it's still very impressive and hopefully she can win a medal in LA 2028, obviously it won't be in the lightweight category. We only sent two other U23 boats, I guess that's what happens when the event is not held in Europe. Fragkou was 4th in W1X which is disappointing after she won medals in 2021 (bronze in W2X), 2022 (gold in W2-), 2023 (bronze in W1X). She will be back in 2025 and hopefully can get another medal and continue fighting for 2028, because to be honest she hasn't been making much progress anymore the last 1-2 years. Boukouvalas/Lykomitros were a disappointing 9th in M2-, which I didn't expect after they got off to a good start to the regatta by winning their first heat...

Good to see Karalis easily into the final

Also congratulations to our brothers for an incredible regatta! The results you guys hoped for maybe didn't come in Tokyo but now they came in Paris and I think you will continue in LA! And also congratulations to our friends here! I remember Senkute seemed quite hopeless some years ago, big improvement from her to win a medal when it used to seem that she was never even going to qualify for any Olympics and I would always see her name in competitions and wondered why she didn't do anything else with her life after always finishing in Final C/D of events for many years. She can be an example to all that if you keep working hard, anything is possible!

I don't think they were that unexpected to be honest, both crews showed they were in very good form this year, especially the women.

Ntouskos He was in a medal position for most of the race and totally ran out of gas. He attacked the federation and coach in an interview immediately after the final, which I'm shocked about because when the Kyridou sisters had issues with them, he seemed to take the federation/coach's side He also said he only slept 3 hours last night and that the federation could be doing better (which we all know) and that they robbed other athletes of chances and we could've won medals, and that even if the crew would be only 2 seconds faster, you have to put that faster athlete in the boat. He was kind of cryptic but it seemed like he was complaining that they put his girlfriend Anastasiadou in W2- instead of LW2X because she is better than the girls who won a medal and also a lightweight and maybe we could've done better than bronze if she was in that crew. I don't know, I'll have to look into it more but there is always so much drama with our rowers. And now the coach has responded to Ntouskos' comments

I didn't see it but I saw a lot of people on Greek sports sites complaining about the refereeing

No, we only need to win by 3 because then we will be -1 and France will be -2

I don't either, we were horrible We always win against the Italian girls so this is very surprising for us, but our level has been quite poor in this tournament, so different compared to how well we played at the European and World Championships earlier this year.

I'm happy we got a win and avoided finishing last in a very tough group! But we wasted a big lead and could've already been in QF if we won by more... Now we need our Orthodox brothers to save us and send us to the quarterfinals. Go go go

Sad for Gkolomeev finishing 5th in the men's 50 freestyle, he was also 5th in Tokyo. Missed the podium by 0.03 seconds and said it was probably his last Olympics He said it's very painful to not win an Olympic medal but that he is proud of his career Also in the women's 50 freestyle Drakou was 17th and missed the SF by 1 place. However she had the second best time of her career. Actually, her best three times of her career were all in 2024, as a 32 yo

Εγώ θα φύγω αύριο για τις διακοπές μου για 2 εβδομάδες. Πάω Κέρκυρα, Ήπειρο (Πάργα Σύβοτα κτλ), και Λευκάδα Μάλλον δε θα με δείτε εδώ στο site. Καλό Δεκαπενταύγουστο σε όλους σας!

Ήταν στα μετάλλια μέχρι τα 1300 μέτρα περίπου. Κρίμα...

Δεν έχουμε περάσει ακόμα

Event finals for Frantzeskakis and Gusin Too bad Emmanouilidou didn't make the 100m semis, but I think she has a better chance at 200m.

Well you can say it's because of his backhand or mental strength for not winning a gold or silver here, but really if he had a different draw he very likely could've won bronze. He lost to Djokovic at RG 2020 (semifinals), RG 2021 (final), Olympics 2024 (quarterfinals), and Alcaraz at RG 2023 (quarterfinals), and RG 2024 (quarterfinals). He needed to avoid one of those. He likely would've beaten Zverev as he totally dominates that H2H, and Medvedev didn't even make QF. If you look at the other two semifinalists, Tsitsipas also owns Musetti and Auger-Aliassime in H2H. So maybe for someone else it wasn't the draw but for him it definitely was. He had a 50/50 chance of avoiding Alcaraz/Djokovic and it didn't happen. Matchups are very important in this case. Of course you can never predict what will happen (see Swiatek losing to Zheng for example) but definitely with a different draw we could've seen him on the podium. That's tennis though. I am not going to sit here and say it was some conspiracy against him, or that the draw is the only reason why he lost, but you can't deny that with some luck with the draw he could've gone further here.

I'm glad that after a disappointing first few days in Paris we are able now to win some more medals, 4 in the last 3 days and hopefully more to come Also I want to say Dimitra Kontou who won bronze in LW2X is only 18 years old! When was the last time someone that young won an Olympic medal in rowing? I think we will see her in 2028 in an open category, she is not so small, about 170 cm I think. I'm not sure what Zoi Fitsiou does from here but she's already 28 yo, retired from rowing once to study, then came back into coastal rowing and then in regular rowing. Perhaps she will try coastal rowing again for 2028? As for the men, I can see Papakonstantinou continuing in the open weights but Gkaidatzis seems too small. Of course you never know, we just had 165cm Evangelia Anastasiadou get 6th in the W2- today which shows some of the lightweight rowers can hold their own in the open category.

We've won 6 Olympic rowing medals in our history now, 3 in LM2X (2004, 2008, 2024), 2 in LW2X (2012, 2024), and 1 in M1X (2020). We will be sad to see the LW events go And we're the only country to win medals in both LW events here in Paris

Thank you! Congrats to you on an expected gold