Makedonas

Well it looks like Sloukas, Calathes, and Dorsey will all miss the World Cup and possibly Giannis Antetokounmpo as well. Not looking good for us...

Interesting to see some comments here, when last year there was no sympathy from the same people for Evangelia Platanioti who was robbed in broad daylight...

Semifinals: 51 - 98 Bronze medal match: 68 - 64 (OT)

Greek National Team Medals - 2021: Silver - Olympics (Men) Silver - U17 European Championships (Men) Silver - U17 European Championships (Women) Silver - U20 World Championships (Women) Bronze - World League (Men) Bronze - U15 European Championships (Men) Greek National Team Medals - 2022: Silver - European Championships (Women) Silver - U18 World Championships (Women) Silver - U16 World Championships (Men) Silver - U16 World Championships (Women) Bronze - World Championships (Men) Bronze - U19 European Championships (Women) Greek National Team Medals - 2023: Silver - U15 European Championships (Women) Bronze - U15 European Championships (Men) So that is 14 medals but no gold...

Semifinals: 13- 15 Είχαμε 6-2 και χάσαμε στα πέναλτι... Bronze medal match: 14 - 13

2023 European Athletics U23 Championships: Gold: Elina Tzengko - women's javelin throw Silver: Panagiota Dosi - women's high jump Bronze: Georgia Despollari - women's 800m Polyniki Emmanouilidou - women's 200m

Well, they all won medals! Tzengko got gold, Dosi silver (with a new PB), and Emmanouilidou bronze Also Kariofyllis an impressive 5th in the men's 200m So we ended with 4 medals, same as 2021 except this time we got 1 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze. Last time, we had 0 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze. Also this time all 4 medals came from women, last time we had 3 from men and 1 from a woman. I would've liked for Emmanouilidou to get a better time, but I guess the conditions did not allow it. It's great to see Dosi finally on the way up again after her progress stopped for several years. Hopefully she can keep this up. So, Dosi who got silver still gets to hear her national anthem played at the medal ceremony

We won bronze! We were down 40-52 after 3Q and came from behind to level it at 56-56, then we won 68-64 in OT!

Also in 2016 we beat Spain in the group stage, and in 2020 we beat Hungary in the group stage. Both of those teams ended up qualifying of course...

4 finals for us in the last session. Women's javelin, women's high jump, women's 200, and men's 200. Hopefully we can win at least 2 medals because so far we only have one bronze, which would be one of our worst Championships ever (only 2015 was worse - we won no medals).

Time for my annual reminder that we won the 2011 World Championships and still did not qualify for London 2012 Back then only 8 teams made it to OG, and the world champion didn't get a quota. Then we also got silver at the European Championships but Europe did not have any automatic quotas (though the Americas, Asia, and Oceania each did ). So, the only chance for a European team to qualify was via the World Qualification Tournament, and we lost to Spain in the match for qualification. Spain ended up winning silver in London. Then for 2016, Europe did get an automatic spot, but we came 5th at the European Championships so again had to try at the World Qualification Tournament. We lost to Russia on penalties (after leading 9-7 with about two minutes left, and then 10-9 until Russia equalised with 4 seconds left) in the match for qualification...Russia ended up with bronze in Rio. Then for 2020, they added 2 quotas but one went to Africa and one to the World League, which USA won so then Canada took the Americas quota, so really it made no difference for us and in the match for qualification we led the Netherlands 4-3 at halftime and were unable to score any goals in the second half... So yeah, it's a really bitter feeling and I think no other national team from any sport has missed out several Olympics in a row like we have. Not to mention our best young player left us to play for USA...

Well things are not looking good, we are -25 and it is not even halftime. I was hoping we could become the first country to win this title 4 times but it looks like bronze will now be the goal for our team...

We sent a pretty big team of 40 athletes to Espoo. Our only medal so far was a bronze in the women's 800m from 19 yo Despollari, which is extremely impressive considering she is a professional footballer who runs 400m and 800m as a hobby, and before this year her PB was 2:12.32 and already improved by more than 10 seconds this year. I really hope she focuses more on track because she seems very promising and Greeks are traditionally very poor at middle distances. Our other hope was Deligianni who won bronze in 800 at the World U20s in 2021, but she is injured this year. It's pretty exciting to see these talents emerge in events where we never do well! Emmanouilidou was a big chance for us to win a medal, unfortunately she was only 5th in the 100, but I think in the 200 she will have a better chance as that is really her best event. A nice surprise was our men's 4x100 relay team, who finished 4th with a U23NR. Our women's 4x400 team also had a U23NR, despite not making the final. I don't think they are particularly talented, but we rarely have relay teams competing at this age level, so it probably wasn't too hard to make a NR (also all 4 of the girls can be back in 2025 so I think that NR can be broken again) In the women's 10000m (another event where we traditionally are trash), we had promising results with Kassou finishing 4th and Lavasa 6th. Kassou is young enough that she will be back in 2025, so hopefully she can win a medal then. Was hoping for a medal in the men's hammer, but our best result was Polychroniou in 5th place. Ntousakis was 12th and Korakidis was 14th. Polychroniou and Korakidis will get another chance at this level in 2025. Dragomirova finishing 18th in the heptathlon was disappointing, but I think she will do much better in 2025 and contend for a medal if she stays healthy. Karydi not even making the triple jump final after winning silver in 2021 was a joke. It's insane how much she and Nacheva have regressed when a few years ago they seemed to be the most promising European triple jumpers by far. Rapti also continues to underperform in major events, nowhere near her SBs in both the long and triple jumps, but she is still young and will have another chance in 2025. Another disappointment was Stamatonikolos in the men's long jump. He had 7.86 just last week, and this week jumped 7.03 in qualifying and failed to make the final. He is another athlete who is young enough to have another chance in 2023. Fiaska 8th in the women's 20km walk...after she was 7th in 2021 we thought she would win a medal in 2023, but this year was very difficult for her with medical problems so it's not surprising at all that she couldn't take a medal. I already mentioned how disappointing Pavlidis was in the men's discus, and Bouzakis was not much better although he did at least make the final. Both will get the chance again in 2025, so hopefully they will learn from this experience and do better next time. Kosmidou not making the women's hammer final was kind of embarrassing... No words for Filippidou missing the women's discus final after winning silver at the World U20s last year. She has been awful throughout 2023 and I wonder if leaving her American college to come back to Greece was a mistake seeing how bad her results are these days. Hopefully she can do better in 2025. Retsa has barely improved the last few years so it's disappointing that she was 10th in the women's pole vault but also not surprising. She is young enough to come back in 2025, but I have a feeling the younger Greek pole vaulters may surpass her and she won't even make the team. Finally, Roumtsios making the semifinals in the men's 110 hurdles was a nice surprise, and he did it with a big PB. Hopefully he can keep improving and do better in 2025. We won 4 medals in 2021 so it's disappointing that we only have 1 so far, however I think Tzengko and Emmanouilidou have really good chances to add to our medal tally tomorrow, and also Dosi in the women's high jump should have a decent chance! Also this is a very young team and the likes of Emmanouilidou, Despollari, Filippidou, Kassou, Polychroniou, Korakidis, Pavlidis, Bouzakis, Roumtsios, Stamatonikolos, Rapti, Dragomirova, Retsa etc. will all get another opportunity in 2025!

LEN Men's European U15 Water Polo Championships 2023: Group B: 20 - 2 12 - 15 11 - 9 Quarterfinals: 15 - 6 Semifinals: vs.

2023 FIBA U20 European Championship: Group C: 72 - 67 62 - 80 78 - 64 Round of 16: 83 - 75 Quarterfinals: 87 - 61 Semifinals: vs.

Like our discus thrower Dimitrios Pavlidis. He threw 64.90 in April and here he could only reach 53.05 and missed the final

We really have an amazing record against Turkey. We were even down 13 at one point but won by 26 in the end

2023 Wimbledon: Men's Singles: Round 4: Christopher Eubanks USA d. (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE 3-6 7-6(4) 3-6 6-4 6-4

The highlight of Day 2 of the Greek Nationals was Tentoglou's 8.38 EL, which gave him the Olympic qualification. Still, he seemed disappointed because he wanted a bigger jump. There was a decent crowd to watch him though: Also in the men's long jump, 20 yo Stamatonikolos won silver with a PB of 7.86, and 19 yo Chitas was 4th with a PB of 7.50. The other big star of the day was Stefanidi, who won gold with a SB of 4.61. Polak (4.46) and Kyriakopoulou (4.35) were the other medalists, each with SBs as well. They both got important points for Budapest and will hope to repeat that at the Balkan Championships. Kyriazis won the men's javelin with 79.61, and Scarvelis won the women's hammer with 68.83. Both got important ranking points as they try to make it to Budapest. Same with Gnafaki who won the women's 400 hurdles with 56.69. The men's high jump saw Merlos and 18 yo Mita each with 2.19. For Mita, it was a new PB. In the women's long jump, the top 6 all finished above 6m (which is very good for our standards), and the winner was Koreneva with 6.43. Unfortunately, she is still waiting for Greek citizenship despite living here for many years and being married to a Greek.

2023 World Rowing Cup III Bronze: Evangelia Anastasiadou and Christina Bourmpou (women's pair) Zoi Fitsiou and Dimitra Kontou (women's lightweight double sculls) Ξανά στο βάθρο η Ελλάδα σε παγκόσμιο Κύπελλο μετά από 7 χρόνια (Ασουμανάκη-Νικολαϊδου το 2016)

2023 Wimbledon: Men's Singles: Round 3: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Laslo Djere SRB 6-4 7-6(5) 6-4 Round 4: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. Christopher Eubanks USA Men's Doubles: Round 1: Fils FRA/van Assche FRA d. Tsitsipas/Tsitsipas GRE/GRE 6-7(3) 6-4 6-2

https://meets.rosterathletics.com/public/competitions/details/schedule?id=23429&meId=140335

So our girls won easily against Bosnia for bronze, but our girls somehow do not get promoted because Portugal is hosting next year and they were one of the teams who finished bottom 3 of Division A. Therefore, only 2 teams got promoted from Division B instead of the usual 3. What a ridiculously unfair rule! The hosts of these events should not be chosen until the field is finalized. FIBA are an absolute JOKE!

Tentoglou today had 8.38 at the Greek Nationals in Volos

Athletics +1 Miltiadis Tentoglou (men's long jump)