Makedonas

The British Wimbledon crowd was completely ignorant and rude with their treatment of Azarenka. I thought these people were supposed to know about tennis. Are they that oblivious? This is why Sabalenka waited at the net in Paris for Svitolina. I don't think anyone should be booed in these sensitive situations, but definitely not the players who actually want to shake hands!

We got bronze in W2- (from a 22 yo and a 21 yo) and LW2X! (from a 27 yo and a 17 yo)! First time since 2016 that Greece won a medal at a World Cup.

Overall a good first day at our National Championships, which are being held in Volos for the first time. The two big stars who competed today were Tzengko and Karalis. Tzengko won the women's javelin with 58.50, which was her only valid throw. She fouled her second and didn't throw again. Karalis won the men's pole vault with 5.50, and had three failed attempts at 5.72. The women's 100m was a great race, even without Emmanouilidou who has 11.21 this year (she's resting to focus on the European U23s). Anastasiou won with a new PB of 11.41 (she previously had 11.52), and Tsoukala was second with a new PB of 11.44 (she previously had 11.48). Spanoudaki, who is coming back from injury, had a respectable third place finish with 11.49. With these three girls and Emmanouilidou (plus Pesiridou who only competed in 100H here), we can have a real shot at qualifying a relay for Paris The men's 100 had a wind of +4.2 so unfortunately those marks won't count (though I guess they do for rankings), as the medalists were Nyfantopoulos (10.15w), Trivyzas (10.31w), and an unknown young athlete named Volikas (10.32w). We also saw big things in the men's triple jump. Pantazis won gold with 17.19w (he also had 16.91 today which was with +1.4 so that is his new PB, after he had 16.86 from 2021). 41 yo Tsiamis got silver with 16.82w (his best legal jump today was 16.39), and European indoor silver medalist Andrikopoulos got bronze with 16.18, which was his only valid jump today as he also had 5 (!!!) fouls. The men's hammer was underwhelming, with the medals going to Anastasakis (74.21), Frantzeskakis (72.72), and Zaltos (72.26). All three will be going to Budapest anyways so I guess it doesn't matter too much that they were so far from their PBs today. Douvalidis won the men's 110 hurdles for the 28423686754th time, with a SB of 13.61, and Pesiridou won the women's 100 hurdles for the 284387428th time, with a SB of 13.05. We had a lot of PBs and SBs in that race. Mouzenidis won the men's shot put with a new PB of 19.98. After his U23, U20 and U18 success, I definitely expected more from him, but maybe now he is finally moving in the right direction again. He only turned 24 yo last week, so he still has time on his side. The level in the women's high jump was embarrassingly low, but Dosi won gold with a new PB of 1.88. She had our national U20 and U18 records and then stopped improving since the pandemic began, but now this year she got two new PBs so hopefully she's on the right path again. She's only 22 yo so she also has time. Koreneva won the women's triple jump with 13.92w, and also a new PB of 13.87(+1.3). Karydi finally jumped over 13m for the first time this year in qualifying (13.11), but in the final all three of her valid jumps had too much wind assistance to be a new SB. She won silver with 13.55w. Lastly, we saw a new U20NR from Kallimogianni in the women's 3000 steeplechase, who improved her own NR from 10:26.11 to 10:21.51 to win bronze. Even more impressive was 20 yo Rafailaki who won silver, improving her PB from 10:41.70 to 10:20.79

Is that just because of Poland's basketball pedigree? I feel like it's hard to judge as it was the first game for both, maybe Poland will end up winning other games in our group.

We beat Poland 72-67. I only caught the last 5 minutes or so, as I was watching Tsitsipas and also our U18 women had their semifinal, but I guess it's a good win. Not sure how far we can go here, but a medal is obviously ideal especially as we are at home.

Well, they are in the A Final so it seems like they will be the crew we send to Paris. I guess the Kyridou sisters can try to qualify in the double sculls or maybe in the four with two other athletes. Of the 5 boats we sent to Lucerne, 4 are in the A Finals (M1X, LM2X, W2-, LW2X). It seems like we should expect those boats to all qualify for Paris. The one boat that didn't make it was the M2X. They were in the A Final of the World Championships last year, and one of the two rowers was injured since then and is just coming back, so hopefully they just need more time to get back to a high level.

I wouldn't say that. She had a tough draw here, playing one of the strongest unseeded opponents in R1 (just like in RG when she played Muchova in R1). Meanwhile, we saw other R1 matches like Zhao vs Korpatsch, Bonaventure vs Bai, Juvan vs Betova, Parry vs Dart and Brengle vs Errani There was a rain delay at 5-0 in the first set and then another one after the first set, so surely this changed the momentum.

I'm so happy that Tsitsipas beat Murray. He had a tricky draw for the first two rounds with Thiem and Murray, but now the draw has opened up for him. I hope he can make a big run. The win over Murray was impressive, he served really well and only faced one break point the entire match. He's also in doubles with his brother. I don't want him to get too tired but I understand why he's playing doubles. Usually, he doesn't do well on grass so he probably wasn't even expecting to make R3 of singles They had to withdraw from mixed doubles due to Badosa's injury, which I guess is fine as it will give Stefanos more time to rest.

2023 Wimbledon: Men's Singles: Round 1: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Dominic Thiem AUT 3-6 7-6(1) 6-2 6-7(5) 7-6(8) Round 2: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Andy Murray GRE 7-6(3) 6-7(2) 4-6 7-6(3) 6-4 Round 3: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. Laslo Djere SRB Women's Singles: Round 1: Marta Kostyuk UKR d. (8) Maria Sakkari GRE 0-6 7-5 6-2

Well we are now into the semifinals, and so are Luxembourg, so I guess it wasn't such a bad loss after all

I even saw an advertisement for Wimbledon a few days ago, I don't remember if it was from Eurosport or ESPN or what, and they had just Djokovic and Gauff on it... I mean Swiatek, Sabalenka, Rybakina, even Venus Williams I would understand. Gauff though?

Άλλο ένα αργυρό μετάλλιο...

2023 Wimbledon: Women's Singles Qualifying: Round 1: Natalija Stevanovic SRB d. Valentini Grammatikopoulou GRE 6-2 6-1 Round 1: Despina Papamichail GRE d. Zeynep Sonmez TUR 6-3 3-6 6-4 Round 2: Despina Papamichail GRE d. (10) Oceane Dodin FRA 7-6(8) 7-6(3) Round 3: (29) Viktorija Golubic SUI d. Despina Papamichail GRE 6-2 7-6(5) Men's Singles: Round 1: (5) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. Dominic Thiem AUT Women's Singles: Round 1: (8) Maria Sakkari GRE vs. Marta Kostyuk UKR Men's Doubles: Round 1: Tsitsipas/Tsitsipas GRE/GRE vs. Fils FRA/van Assche FRA

Now she won a W25 in Serbia from qualifying without dropping a set (Emma Raducanu who?), so this result doesn't seem out of the ordinary and she will be ranked around 360 after Wimbledon (and potentially higher depending on how she does this week in Spain).

I'm not at all surprised that Kenin beat Gauff. They even had Gauff on all of the tournament posters. They really need to calm down with all this hype. She's just not that good (at the moment, at least).

Our girls U18 team lost 62-63 to Luxembourg at the European Championships Division B the other day. I do not know much about this competition, but surely losing to Luxembourg is not a good sign for the future...

Anastasiadou/Bourmpou will represent Greece in the women's pair at the upcoming World Cup. Anastasiadou is only 21 yo yet has competed in W1X, LW1X, W2X, LW2X and now W2- She usually wins medals when she shows up to international regattas, but it would really be nice if she can just find one boat/crew and stick to it. There was also a ton of drama (which I won't bore everyone with) with the Kyridou sisters not getting selected for this event...

Pretty big results in the women's pole vault at the U18 Greek Championships this past weekend: 14 yo Ariadni Mirtsiou won with 4.10, 17 yo Evgenia Panagiotou got silver with 4.05, and 15 yo Anastasia Bouboulidi took bronze with 4.00 I don't know any other country that had all three medalists at their U18 National Championships clear 4m, it definitely didn't happen anywhere else this year.

Our two best fencers are ranked in the top 4 of the world

Well, she will choose to focus on football unfortunately. She got called up to the women's national team so I guess it makes sense for her. She will compete at the upcoming National Championships and European U23 Championships (with the third best time), and then focus on football again.

I'm pleasantly surprised that we avoided relegation Without a doubt, our 19 yo sprinter Polyniki Emmanouilidou was the star for us. Got 3rd place in 200m with a U23NR of 22.85 Also she was 7th in 100m with 11.30 which is her second best time ever. Another 19 yo, Georgia Despollari, also impressed a lot. She finished 10th in the 800m with a new PB of 2:02.31 (her PB before this season was 2:12.32). She is a footballer for Panathinaikos' women's team and suddenly it seems that she might have to change her career. If she actually focuses on track, she could potentially do really big things. Especially for our standards as we are historically poor in middle and long distance events, as evidenced by our results here. Our women's 4x100 team got 7th with a time of 43.81 which is the best they've done in several years, and this is without Spanoudaki who is injured (who was our best sprinter until this year when Emmanouilidou surpassed her). They can make it to Paris if healthy, which would be incredible, as we have not had any athletics relay team at an Olympics since our men's 4x400 team made it in Beijing 2008... We had a lot of good results from men in field events. Tentoglou 1st, Karalis 2nd, Anastasakis and Tsiamis 3rd, Kyriazis 5th...Nyfantopoulos 6th in 100m was also good. We needed some results like this since we are horrible at the middle and long distance events. I will say I am disappointed in some of our women. Tzengko 5th and Stefanidi 8th, these are the types of athletes we expect better from...also Karydi 10th and hasn't even jumped over 13m this year, it's crazy to see how much she has regressed when a few years ago she was one of the most promising jumpers in the world. Apparently she isn't training much anymore because she is focusing on dental school. Stamatia Scarvelis 11th was also very disappointing, she's been generally poor this year. As for Vasiliou finishing 16th in 400m with 53.90, no words... However, the most disappointing of all was Pavlidis in the men's discus. He's our men's NR holder (64.90) at only 19 yo and he only registered one valid attempt today which was 45.79 for a last place finish. Also special thanks to European Athletics for making it almost impossible to follow these events as we cannot even see live results without registering for their stupid website. World Athletics did the same thing last year I believe. These people really want to make their sport as inaccessible as possible, huh?