Makedonas

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

Cyprianos aka Kyprianos is a Cypriot name, I know there was in the past some Greek community in Zimbabwe.

I never said we would definitely qualify or that it was a surprise (but that the sport often has surprises), but it's definitely a failure from us that we had several athletes here with decent chances and not one of them was able to get a quota, even for Tokyo we had lower expectations but still managed a quota. It's also disappointing that Telikostoglou and Sarvanaki for example won medals in World Championships but can't make it to the Olympics, though I know they are not the only ones in this world of course.

You didn't mention in women's -67 kg, who I think was probably our most likely to qualify

We also haven't participated since 2008, when we had 2 boxers. For Tokyo we had 3 boxers who were each one victory away from qualification, but they all lost. Now here we only have one left (Karaitis), and he has to win today and tomorrow to get the quota and I think it's very unlikely. Let's see what will happen at the other world qualification tournament...

All four of our athletes were 2nd or 3rd seeded, and none of them managed to even make the semifinals I know taekwondo often has surprises but still it's very disappointing that we will have no one in Tokyo. We have 5 athletes ranked in the top 20 in the Olympic rankings, so the fact that none of them were able to qualify is definitely a failure in my opinion. I was definitely hoping we could qualify 1 or 2...

Telikostoglou missing the Olympics once again

So we still have four boxers left, all are two wins away from the quota (Nanitzanian, Karaitis, Roulias, and Mavrommati). I'd be surprised if we have more than one in a quota bout to be honest.

Also not sure if people noticed all of the Olympic-related things in the music video, not only Panathenaic Stadium but also there is an Athens 2004 shirt hanging on the clothes line when the old lady is dancing, and at the end one of the Athens 2004 mascots as a stuffed animal (my grandmother actually bought me the same stuffed animal in 2004 and I still have it in my room )

We can always count on Marina to have unique music videos

Is it still going to be two flag bearers or back to one? We always pick people with Olympic history (though of course there are always rumours that someone more famous like Tsitsipas or Antetokounmpo will do it, which anyone who knows anything knows won't happen as long as there are Olympic medalists around). Of active gold medalists, for women we have Anna Korakaki and Katerina Stefanidi, for men we have Eleftherios Petrounias, Miltiadis Tentoglou, and Stefanos Ntouskos. Korakaki and Petrounias already did it. It will probably be Stefanidi and Tentoglou. I can't see Ntouskos doing it as the rowing competition starts early, and even still, Tentoglou is much more successful than him.

And now his ex-wife (they divorced before they died), / volleyball player Ruxandra Dumitrescu has passed away at age 46 from cardiac arrest. She was originally from Romania but got Greek citizenship after many years playing in our women's league (17 in total but she got citizenship after 7 years), played for the Greek women's national team at Athens 2004 as well. They had a son together also, he is probably not even a teenager yet, so sad for him to grow up without parents...

Wow so we have a girl Christina Linardatou who already won two fights in 60 kg. I had never heard of her and was surprised to see she had a Wikipedia page, so I clicked it and now have been researching her a lot. She is 36 yo and seemed to have a successful professional career, also has 30k+ followers on Instagram. There seems to be some drama with her not being invited back to professional boxing after having a baby, I will look into it more another time, but it seems like now that is why she is fighting for a place at the Olympics instead. Perhaps someone who knows more than me about boxing (I know nothing) can explain this better? It's confusing to me! It would be cool if she could qualify considering I had never heard her name until a few days ago and I always like it when Greek athletes who weren't on my radar end up on the Olympic team Also she was born in the Dominican Republic to a Greek father (who worked in the shipping industry so that explains how he got there) and a Dominican mother, but moved to Greece as a child. She also is with a Greek guy and had a child with him (I didn't see any evidence of a wedding on her Instagram page so I don't think they are married but I could be wrong).

I always liked her but think it's weird she got less time than Sharapova, and also they should've just made it 18 months. Now it's sad that she could've played sooner but they didn't have the decision in time?! Anyways I'm happy to see her back, hopefully she will be in Paris as she had to miss both Rio and Tokyo...

I'm working on it, I narrowed it down to 16 songs so I need another listen to get my top 12 and then possibly 1-2 more listens to get the order correct, I should have it within the next 20 hours or so.

One more chance for the young Sofia Georgopoulou to lift an additional 10-15 kg or so, otherwise will not participate in weightlifting at the Olympics for the first time since 1956 Reminder that in 1996 we won the weightlifting medal table at the Olympics, and in 2000 we were second in the medal table...

The first phase (26 match days) of 2023-24 Super League Greece is done, and the top 6 teams (out of 14) in the league now advance to the play-off round, while the other 8 go to the relegation round. 1. PAOK - 60 points 2. AEK - 59 points 3. Olympiacos - 57 points 4. Panathinaikos - 56 points 5. Aris - 42 points 6. Lamia - 34 points I don't ever remember the league being this competitive, with the top 4 teams really doing so well, anyone can take it! There will be 10 match days in the play-off round (all teams play each other twice), and whoever leads at the end will be the league winner. Usually it is decided before the last week or maybe there are 2 teams going to the end, but this year is really crazy!

I guess we will see if the ATP website updates his W/L record

Does Rublev still count as a semifinalist or is his result now invalid? He won't get any ranking points for this event. I'm surprised the incident wasn't mentioned here at all...