Makedonas

The draw is already out. You are in the group with Italy and Canada who will probably beat you comfortably, then in the knockout have to face the loser of Australia/Hungary and if you somehow win that, that is only to make the quarterfinals where you will be by far the weakest link. Congratulations on your Doha qualification though!

We did it! Wooowww!!! As always they didn't make it easy but this time they held on for the win! I don't even care that we won bronze, our girls are going to the Olympics for the first time since 2008! So many heartbreaking losses in quota games since then. 2012 against Spain when we were World Champions in 2011 and that's how FINA changed their qualification system. Then 2016 against Russia with a 9-7 lead with 2 minutes left and 10-9 lead with 4 seconds left and lost on penalties. Then 2021 when we led the Dutch at halftime and didn't score a single goal the rest of the game. It will be nice to be relaxed during the World Championships and not having to stress about either one of our teams. They did it for themselves and also for the past generations! Some of the best players in the world in the last 10-15 years like Avramidou, Kouvdou, Manolioudaki never got to go to the Olympics. And so many others. So nice to see people like Diamantopoulou who was expected to make her Olympic debut in 2012 as a 16 yo, finally getting to go as a 28 yo! And Asimaki 16 years later in her "second career." Also girls like the Plevritou sisters, Eleftheriadou, Xenaki who shed many tears in past heartbreaks, most of them as teenagers at first, finally getting to go to the Olympics! I am sorry for our Italian friends. This was so important for us though. I hope you guys qualify via Doha because you deserve it especially for beating USA last year!

I actually might have a heart attack.

6-6

What did I say. The choke was inevitable. 5-4 now with plenty of time left...

5-2 after the third period! Alexandra Asimaki scores her second goal of the day. The former FINA World Player of the Year is looking to make it back to the Olympics as a 36 year old after her last appearance in 2008 when she was 20!

We've now gone 13+ minutes without a goal. Deja vu from the Netherlands game at the last Olympic qualifiers...

Our choke has begun, we cannot score anymore and Italy will catch up

Well, to be honest he won over 50 matches last year and still ended the year ranked number 6 despite multiple injuries And when they played each other Molcan was well rested, Tsitsipas played a long doubles match 30 minutes prior as well as a long singles match the day before while Molcan won 6-1 6-1 the day before.

We had some chances to extend the score that we didn't take, but also Italy is wasting a lot of chances to catch up, so I really can't complain so far. 16 minutes to go...

We have a tougher draw at the World Championships, so I am worried that we will lose it there... We lead Italy 3-1 in after the first period. It is far from over and our girls should know this after some of our previous chokes in matches for Olympic quotas (2016 vs Russia and 2021 vs Netherlands).

We led 6-5 at halftime and then totally collapsed, Croatia then went up 6-13 and we scored two goals at the end It's still crazy that we have 4 World Championships medals and none at the European Championships, even though it is basically the same opponents in both. It's a good thing we already qualified for the Olympics, and still have the World Championships and Olympics later this year, so hopefully we can get back on the podium very soon.

I'm sure you also didn't expect the win vs USA last year, so Italy definitely still has a good chance at getting this quota (unfortunately for us )

I don't know. In her case she is unlucky that the last Olympics were in 2021 and not 2020, as she would've otherwise been eligible. Anyways, this is the decision she chose to make and she said from Day 1 that she knew Greece would probably not agree to let her go and she accepted missing the 2024 Games if it came down to that, so she clearly knows she is not entitled to participate in the Olympics for a random country (I mean that in the nicest possible way but let's be honest she has nothing to do with Portugal). Her issues with our sailing federation were well documented for years, and she says our Olympic committee knew and did nothing about it and only tried to help once she said she was looking for another country instead, and at that point she made her decision to leave (even though she still did not know to which country she would go to). Still, I think she should have given it one more chance because our Olympic committee actually was willing to help her (and it's not like we have anyone else in ILCA 6 who can challenge her for the quota), and for an athlete to make this decision knowing she will miss the Olympics is a big deal, although she clearly had her reasons for it.

If we end up playing each other for the spot (which is the most likely scenario as and are big favourites to reach the final), then I must point out that we won our last three matches with Italy. So naturally we are due for a loss to them, so I guess we'll miss the quota We beat Italy 10-4 in January 2021 at the Olympic Qualification Tournament, 12-9 in September 2022 at the European Championships, and 16-12 in July 2023 at the World Championships. Anyways, next we are facing Spain who we have not beaten since the 2018 European Championships. Since then, we played them four times with three losses and one draw...So it's hard to be optimistic...

I think Diana Shnaider, the other Russian teen in the top 100, also has liked several Instagram posts supporting the invasion.

It has been said for the past two years that she would probably not be able to compete at the 2024 Olympics because our Olympic committee needed to "agree" to the switch or something. I'm not familiar with this process but it seems that as long as she doesn't have our approval, she will have to wait until Los Angeles 2028. The president of our Olympic committee said that they are not going to help her compete for another country. Of course there is still time for her to qualify as a Greek athlete and compete at the Olympics if she qualifies in one of the upcoming regattas under our flag, and our Olympic committee has made it clear that they will "support" her if she chooses to do so, but she has made it clear that she would rather skip these Olympics than compete for Greece. FYI she has had issues since 2017 with our sailing federation and after the Tokyo Olympics she said she had enough.

At least there is still plenty of time to complete qualifying though. Forecast also looks great. Should not be an issue in the end.

If we qualify, Greece vs Turkey in Germany could be quite dangerous with tensions between the two nations and such a large Turkish community in Germany...

Not sure if this is supposed to be Despina Georgiadou or Theodora Gkountoura

Only chance to win a medal in a new sport is basketball, but I think we'll just be happy to qualify first. Fencing and tennis we haven't won medals since 1896, so medals in those sports will basically be new sports at this point Also in water polo both our men and women have won Olympic medals, but no gold. For a medal in a new event, I guess there are a lot of them. Men's team (basketball), women's sabre (fencing), women's 70 kg (judo), women's pair (rowing), women's double sculls (rowing), men's skeet (shooting), women's skeet (shooting), mixed skeet (shooting), women's singles (tennis), mixed doubles (tennis), women's 53 kg (wrestling), men's 74 kg freestyle (wrestling). 1988 was the last time we did not win a medal in a new event so I guess it's quite likely to win a medal in at least one of these.

2024 United Cup - Group B: Greece 1 - 2 Chile Maria Sakkari GRE d. Daniela Seguel CHI 6-0 6-1 Nicolas Jarry CHI d. Stefanos Sakellaridis GRE 6-3 3-6 7-5 Seguel/Barrios Vera CHI d. Sakkari/S.Tsitsipas GRE 6-7(5) 6-3 10-6 2024 United Cup - Group B: Greece 3 - 0 Canada Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Steven Diez CAN 6-2 6-3 Maria Sakkari GRE d. Leylah Fernandez CAN 7-6(2) 6-3 Papamichail/P.Tsitsipas GRE d. Fung/Auger-Aliassime CAN 7-5 6-4 2024 United Cup - Quarterfinals: Greece 1 - 2 Germany Maria Sakkari GRE d. Angelique Kerber GER 6-0 6-3 Alexander Zverev GER d. Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE 6-4 6-4 Siegemund/Zverev GER d. Sakkari/P.Tsitsipas GRE 6-3 6-3

Also, the men's water polo team won the team award which is deserved. Other finalists in the team category were AEK Athens FC (they won the league and cup titles), and Olympiacos BC (they won the league, cup, Super Cup, and were runners-up in EuroLeague where they embarrassingly choked a comfortable lead against Real Madrid in the final minutes of the game).

For the second year in a row, we had Tentoglou and Drisbioti win. For me, Tentoglou is totally deserved. He won gold at the European indoors and World outdoors and is clearly the best long jumper in the world. The other finalists were Petrounias and Ntouskos, which to me doesn't make much sense. Petrounias won silver at the worlds and bronze at the Europeans, while Ntouskos missed the podium at the worlds but won silver at the Europeans. This time, no Antetokounmpo or Tsitsipas. Actually, Tsitsipas was 9th despite making a GS final. Men's skeet world champion Mitas was only 4th in the voting. In my opinion, he should've been a finalist over Ntouskos. However, I can live with these results. Drisbioti winning for the women is completely a joke. Sure, she had a solid year, but is she really the best we had in women's sport? She won bronze in 35km at the World Championships, which is not even an Olympic event. Then she won gold at the European race walking cup and set national records in 20km and indoor 3km, but it's ridiculous that she won now two years in a row without winning a World Championships medal in an Olympic event. Korakaki and Ntountounaki were the other finalists. Korakaki makes sense as she won a World Championships silver and European Championships gold in Olympic events. Ntountounaki though? She won gold and bronze at the European short course championships. Not fair to girls like Katzouraki (7th place), Gkountoura (11th place), Georgiadou (14th place) who won World Championship medals in Olympic events. So ridiculous how they weren't even close to being finalists. I'm not surprised though, Drisbioti and Ntountounaki always get some favoritism in these awards because they are popular with journalists. It's a shame that Georgiadou the last two years was not a finalist for this award despite being a World Championships medalist each year. In 2023 she also won gold medals in Grand Prix and World Cup events but gets no love. To make things worse, she is 95% not going to the Olympics yet again because of the one fencer per country rule if you don't qualify a team

2023 European U21 Championships: GOLD: Men's +87 kg - Sotiris Michopoulos BRONZE: Men's +87 kg - Filippos Dimitrakopoulos Men's - 54 kg - Konstantinos Dimitropoulos