Makedonas

2023 European Cadets (U17) Wrestling Championships: BRONZE Vasileios Papageorgiou (Men's Greco-Roman 55 kg) Maria-Louiza Gkika (Women's Freestyle 43 kg)

I'm late on this but really a heartbreaking loss for our girls against Czechia. Still, I am optimistic about our future and think we will have an even better chance to make it to 2028. All six of our main players will be back as long as they are injury free, plus the young talents like Bosgana, Chatzileonti, Krimili will be older and hopefully become a part of our main players (so instead of having 6 girls the whole game we can have 8 or 9 )

Dorka Juhasz from WNBA

I really think the ATP and WTA need to work together to plan out finals scheduling. It is ridiculous that every week we have multiple finals from different tournaments going on at the same time. It would be better for all if they were somewhat spaced out...

EuroBasket Women 2023 Group A: 69 - 74 73 - 65 60 - 76 Qualification for Quarterfinals: 76 - 79 Δυστυχώς, με αυτό το αποτέλεσμα δε θα είμαστε στους Ολυμπιακούς του 2024...

Semifinals: 8 - 14 Bronze medal match: 6 - 11

2023 European Championships Bronze - Theodora Gkountoura (women's sabre)

Swimming +1 Anna Ntountounaki (women's 100m butterfly)

For the first time ever, I am glad we lost We played close against Spain for most of the game, which was a good test for our team, and then at the end we gave up and played the bench players. I'm glad our main players can rest up a bit, because we have a big battle tomorrow against Czechia.

This game is too close, I really hope we lose I would much rather face the Czech Republic than Italy, especially since we lost by 53 (!!!) points to Italy in a preparation game a few weeks ago...

Bronze for Theodora!

Yes, I was thinking the same thing, but first we need the Czechs to beat Israel. I think it goes by points difference between the three teams that are tied, so it won't make a difference if Turkey beat Slovakia by 1 point or 30 points.

So happy for Elisavet! She struggled a bit after the Tokyo Olympics but now she has won three Grand Slam gold medals in the past year!

Everyone is writing off Greece? I can see why, as Spain would be expected to beat us and Latvia expected to beat Montenegro. However, I still think we have a chance. We don't have a strong bench but we have 5-6 really good players. Fasoula is one of the best players in the whole tournament.

Nice home win for us against Ireland. We have 6 points after 2 matches Now we will play at France on Monday, so there is nothing for us to lose. Hoping for a surprise draw

Well I came across her Instagram page today. She played in Poland this past season but she has the...Indonesian flag in her Instagram bio... So yeah, I really wasn't wrong about this and while we're at it let's talk about Serbia, Turkey, Hungary, and Israel who also have Americans on their team By the way, here it is in case you didn't believe me: https://www.instagram.com/tasha.mack4/

Well I am very happy with our performance against Latvia! The first quarter was a mess but midway through the second quarter we went down 11 and then it was a big turning point for us and we started to play well. Of course Spanou shot 6 3-pointers, but she actually made 2 of them so I can't even complain today We actually played most of the game with two guards instead of three, and as a result we limited the amount of offensive rebounds Latvia got (compared to Montenegro when we played with three guards). I mean, it is not rocket science so I'm glad our coach was able to figure it out. Also the dinosaurs (Sotiriou and Stamati) each played for less than 10 minutes, which I am happy about, after yesterday we had Stamati play 32 minutes, meanwhile she is 38 yo and spent most of her career either not being good enough for the national team or mostly on the bench and barely getting minutes. Now suddenly the coach decided she is a starting player? Lol. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to have her in the team as a bench player but in no world should she be getting so much playing time. And I was proven correct today Christinaki played 37 mins, Tsineke played 29 mins, and Pavlopoulou played 22 mins, and they all played very well today! This is what I was talking about yesterday. They are all very good players and the coach barely used them against Montenegro. He must have an account on this site and saw my post and decided to listen to me I still think Bosgana should play, it's a shame that she didn't get any minutes so far but it is what it is. Fasoula is incredible! She has really proven herself both for her club and country. She would make it onto any national team (except USA), and she is probably our best overall player since Maltsi. I am not sure if we can beat Spain, it will be very tough, but if Montenegro can beat Latvia then it won't even matter. Let's see what will happen on Sunday...

World Aquatics Men's U20 Water Polo Championships 2023: Group B: 10 - 13 12 - 14 9 - 16 Round of 16: 15 - 8 Quarterfinals: 11 - 10 Semifinals: vs.

Well we can pretty much kiss Paris 2024 goodbye after that performance I was unable to watch the game but if we lost to Montenegro (even if it was close), then we really can't expect to do much here... Judging by the statistics, I am not surprised either. Spanou (our PF/C) shot 7 3-pointers and only made 1 of them. She's been doing this for years. She thinks she is Steph Curry or something, meanwhile she misses 90% of the time. I can't believe no national team coach has ever told her stop doing that crap. It's extremely frustrating. Also we let Montenegro collect 16 (!!!) offensive rebounds, when they only let us get 5. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that we played most of the game with three guards under 180cm, then we wonder why we can't get rebounds... As expected, Diela and Karlafti did not play and Alexandri only played 3 minutes. I'm shocked that Bosgana didn't play at all, as she is one of our tallest players and one of the best players we have on our bench, plus she is a decent shooter too! I'm not sure what this coach was thinking, and playing Stamati more than Christinaki and Pavlopoulou combined is also a joke. Especially since Pavlopoulou seemed to have a good game based on the stats. I will say that I'm happy Tsineke finally got a lot of playing time. Also I will say that I would rather lose with the authentic team we had than win like Montenegro did, with an American player leading them who probably can't even locate Montenegro on the map or can name any place in the country except for maybe Podgorica, or speak a word of their language but that's a conversation for another time...

And now she got 22.94 in 200m, which is a new U23 NR (the previous one was a tie between her and Maria Belibasaki, who both had 23.18!) Of course her improvement each year in 200m has also been very impressive: 2019-24.64 2020-24.25 2021-23.77 2022-23.20 2023-22.94

TEAM GREECE Dionysia Alexandri Eleni Bosgana Eleanna Christinaki Ioanna Diela Maria Fasoula Zafeirenia Karlafti Pinelopi Pavlopoulou Aikaterina Sotiriou Artemis Spanou Evdokia Stamati Anna Stamolamprou Elena Tsineke The only differences from 2021 are Christinaki, Karlafti, and Stamati in for Anastasopoulou, Louka, and Nikolopoulou. Definitely an upgrade overall. The problem with this team is that we have a weak bench. We will have 6-7 girls playing the whole game as always, and suffer if one of the two tall girls (Fasoula and Spanou) get in foul trouble. Alexandri, Diela, and Karlafti are not good enough for this level and Sotiriou and Stamati are no longer good enough to play more than 5-10 mins per game at this stage in their careers. Even Bosgana and Tsineke are both super young/inexperienced, but they were there in 2021 and have both improved a lot since then so I expect them to have a bigger role with this team. It's so predictable that our starting lineup will be Stamolamprou/Tsineke/Christinaki/Spanou/Fasoula, and Pavlopoulou will also get big minutes. The rest of the team (minus maybe Bosgana) will probably play no more than 5 mins each. It's too bad Chatzileonti was injured as I think she would've been an important addition to this team off the bench. Not sure why Krimili wasn't called up as we could also use her offensively. Perhaps she is injured too. Nikolopoulou only played in the first qualifying window so I think she might be done with the national team. She's only 32 yo so it's not like she's super old or anything, but there must be some issue with the federation or coach. I can't say I'm upset as I always thought she got way more playing time than she deserved, but I still think she could've been used off the bench (meanwhile she was a starter for ~5 or so years). Spyridopoulou also seems to be done which is a shame. She was injured and missed Eurobasket 2021 where we could've used her shooting skills. Now she is 34 yo and hasn't competed with the national team in over two years so I guess she is also done. Meanwhile we have 39 yo Sotiriou and 38 yo Stamati in the team

And now she won her first ITF professional title at W25 Kursumlijska Banja, Serbia. She came from qualifying and had wins in the main draw over the likes of no. 354 Reyngold, no. 189 Grammatikopoulou, no. 323 Bayerlova, and no. 299 Dinu. She won 7 matches in total and only lost one set. Dimitra will now move up from her current ranking of 670 to around 475 in the WTA rankings.

Also 76.33m in the hammer throw for Konstantinos Zaltos to finish second at the NCAA Championships. He is number 3 on the Greek men's toplist for 2023 so far, which means we can have three male hammer throwers hopefully qualify for Paris 2024

Notable big new 2023 PBs through 10 June 2023: Women: 100m - Polyniki Emmanouilidou (2003) - 11.21 (had 11.44 after 2022) 100m - Dimitra Tsoukala (1999) - 11.48 (had 11.83 after 2022) 400m - Noragia Johnson (2001) - 53.85 (had 54.88 after 2022) 800m- Georgia Despollari (2003) - 2:04.54 (had 2:12.32 after 2022) 100m Hurdles - Sofia Iosifidou (1998) - 13.65 (had 13.97 after 2022) High Jump - Nikoleta Michailidou (2006) - 1.84i (had 1.77 after 2022) High Jump - Santi Papakosta (2002) - 1.89i (had 1.81 after 2022) Pole Vault - Anastasia Bouboulidi (2008) - 4.00 (had 3.70 after 2022) Pole Vault - Ariadni Mirtsiou (2009) - 4.00 (had 3.20 after 2022) Pole Vault - Iliana Triantafyllou (2005) - 4.30i (had 4.15 after 2022) Long Jump - Andriana Gogga (2003) - 6.11 (had 5.93i after 2022) Triple Jump - Anastasia Vokotopoulou (2004) - 13.34 (had 12.23 after 2022) Triple Jump - Melina Zaragka (2007) - 12.72 (had 12.21 after 2022) Heptathlon - Anastasia Dragomirova (2003) - 5636 (had 5331 after 2022) 20km Race Walk - Antigoni Drisbioti (1984) - 1:28:12 (had 1:29:03 after 2022) Men: 100m - Dimitrios Chrysafis (1999) - 10.44 (had 10.52 after 2022) Pole Vault - Pavlos Kriaras (2006) - 5.10i (had 4.90 after 2022) Long Jump - Nikolaos Stamatonikolos (2003) - 7.81 (had 7.62 after 2022) Triple Jump - Ioannis Gkartsios (2006) - 15.53 (had 15.19 after 2022) Discus Throw - Dimitrios Pavlidis (2003) - 64.90 (had 55.51 after 2022) Hammer Throw - Markelo Mema (2001) - 70.46 (had 68.83 after 2022) Hammer Throw - Orestis Ntousakis (2002) - 71.51 (had 70.36 after 2022) Hammer Throw - Nikolaos Polychroniou (2003) - 72.65 (had 67.76 after 2022) Hammer Throw - Konstantinos Zaltos (2000) - 76.33 (had 72.51 after 2022) Javelin Throw - Alexandros Grigoriadis (2005) - 67.44 (had 61.15 after 2022)

Polyniki Emmanouilidou (19 yo) ran 100m in 11.21 today Fastest 100m by a Greek woman since 2005! Her improvement each year has been very impressive (11.94 in 2019, 11.71 in 2020, 11.55 in 2021, 11.44 in 2022, now 11.21 in 2023 and it's only June). I think as long as she stays injury-free we will see her in Paris, and I think we also have a good chance to make it in the 4x100 relay.