Makedonas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZQrA2ZnS0 Nice to see a decent sized crowd for this! Also I spot Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou in the crowd

Karalis just cleared 5.95 (new indoor NR) and 6.01 (new overall NR), both on his first attempts! EDIT-He missed his first attempt at 6.08 and is not going to attempt any more jumps.

Another big tournament without This format of having qualifiers throughout the year definitely resulted in a lot of surprising results as many teams with big players are missing them, but I don't think anyone has suffered as much in recent years as Croatia! Perhaps it is a lack of depth? Obviously with Bogdanovic, Saric, and Zubac, they would not struggle in qualifiers. Still, other teams have the same issues (especially in weeks when EuroLeague players could not play), but are able to manage to qualify with their B/C teams. Of course they were also unlucky to be in the group with Cyprus, a weak host/automatic qualifier!

Teltsidou moved up to 78kg and won bronze (in Baku I mean)

update: Not the best start to the year for Tentoglou, but I guess it can only get better from here Karalis seems to be getting consistent in jumps over 5.90m, and proving that 2024 was no fluke and he is hopefully here to stay (and I guess to win more silver and bronze medals because there is some Swedish guy who is apparently too good ) No news on Stefanidi and she hasn't been very active on social media. She may have quietly retired, but I have a feeling she is pregnant and will try to come back for LA 2028. Meanwhile, we have some other hopes in the women's pole vault and I think we'll still qualify 3 girls for LA even without Polak (suspended), Kyriakopoulou (retired), and Stefanidi. Two 16 yos are doing well this indoor season, Bouboulidi (4.21) and Mirtsiou (4.15). We also have 21 yo Retsa, who seemed very promising a number of years ago with 4.14 as a 16 yo and then had some injuries and her progress kind of stalled. Now she is improving a lot this year and has a SB (and obviously PR) of 4.41 New U18NR in the men's long jump from 17 yo Tzelepis with 7.46. It will be interesting to track his progress over the next few years vs Tentoglou when he was that young. There are another two teenagers who seem promising, both from Grevena (Tentoglou's hometown) - Samaras and Isaakidis. Also 19 yo Mita in the men's high jump with a new PB of 2.26

Our entry: We had a national final for the first time in many years, it was mainly between Klavdia and Evangelia (see below), but here are some other songs I also liked:

Kecmanovic is also into the final in ATP Delray Beach, and Djere is currently in a third set of the semifinals in ATP Buenos Aires. Definitely a good week for the "lesser" Serbian players!

Sharapova was caught with a substance that was only banned for a few weeks at the time, which she did not know about, and she almost immediately accepted responsibility. She never played the victim or complained, and accepted a much longer ban than other tennis players at the time (Strycova, Cilic). I wouldn't say she was caught "intentionally and consciously." In Sinner's case, his failed tests were swept under the rug for several months and the media and ATP (with their Italian head) did everything possible to act like it did not happen. He did not fire the member of his team who he blamed until after it became public knowledge, more than 5 months after they knew of the positive tests. We can argue all day but the fact is Sinner had two positive tests and is very very lucky that he won't miss any slams because of it. If I were an Italian, I would be celebrating this decision today. The problem is there is zero consistency in tennis and some players get harsher penalties than others.

Since when can you "reach an agreement" regarding a doping suspension? What a joke. Djokovic suffered more for not taking the vaccine than Sinner for failing two doping tests. There is no justice in this sport. A big shame. I don't believe it was intentional but when others like Halep, Sharapova, Jarry were suspended for much longer and even Ymer for not even failing any tests, this seems so ridiculous in comparison.

I don't have the time to host unfortunately, I barely even have time to participate So at this time I'd like to thank everyone who has ever hosted one of these competitions, very much appreciated!

Georgios Roubanis - bronze medalist in the men's pole vault at the 1956 Olympics, died at age 95

Katerina Divari (sailing) She is only 24 yo but has retired and will now be coaching instead. She competed at Tokyo 2020 but did not qualify for Paris 2024. I wonder if she would've continued if she made it to Paris... https://www.instagram.com/p/DE-i1u9ujXS/?img_index=1

Also great for us to be in first place in the world

Who was number 87?

Our results are definitely not better, we always do so well in U19 and U23 and then at that point most of our rowers quit to find a career where they can actually make money. Romania and Italy at least have big teams for the Olympics. We've never had more than 4 boats. For example, just look at our U19 women's team from 2022. We won gold in W1X, W2- and W2X. W1X Gkogkou is now in her second year at Yale University. She didn't compete for the national team last summer in U23 even. W2- Asvesta is at University of Texas and still rows I guess but didn't compete with our national team last summer. Argyraki has not competed since 2022, not even in club rowing, so she probably is focusing on her studies. W2X Natsioula quit rowing at age 17 to study medicine and Dalidou is at Harvard University, but again, she did not compete with the national team in U23 last year either. Only two years later and already none of these 5 girls are with the Greek national team, hopefully at least one or two will come back at some point after their studies but I've thought that in the past about some of the girls who go to the US and we never see them again...

Let's not forget Gkountoura was probably robbed of a medal in Paris too, but I still have hope that we can qualify in the team event in 2028 or at least have one of them qualify and deliver our first Olympic fencing medal since 1896. Would be great for the sport too, no? Oh that's right, having new countries win and "make history" and "diversity" is only convenient some times, depending on who it benefits, but if a country like Greece can benefit then it's not important

Georgiadou and Gkountoura both into the semifinals in Orleans Unfortunately they will face each other now so there is no chance for an all-Greek final Good to see Georgiadou going strong after all she's been through. Really would be incredible if she can qualify for LA 2028, finally making her first Olympics at age 37, and shutting everyone up with the medal she deserves!

Also if I didn't notice the scoring error in the Greek jury vote, Sweden would have won instead of Czechia

Of course the last two results didn't go our way and we ended 5th Still thank you to all who voted for us, still our equal best result ever!

Well that was nice while it lasted

I manifested it! Top 5 guaranteed, so in the worst case scenario, we will equal our best ever TISC result, let's see if we can hold on and finish 3rd or 4th even!

Now we are down to 7th and keep falling Really hope we get something from Moldova here

It's actually our national basketball team's anthem since Eurobasket 1987 @Belle

That's fine, top 3 would still be our best finish ever so I'd like to hold it, but the gap between 3 and 10 is very narrow so it will be difficult...

This cover is hilarious, especially her Greek pronunciation at times