Makedonas

Ο 19χρονος Δημήτρης Παυλίδης βελτίωσε το ατομικό του ρεκόρ στη δισκοβολία (είχε 55.51) δύο φορές φέτος, 58.63 και τώρα 59.73!

Also, wrestler Dauren Kurugliev will likely represent Greece starting with this year's World Championships: https://sportsfeed.gr/metagrafi-olympiakoy-metallioy-apo-ti-rosia-stin-elliniki-pali/ I am disappointed in this, especially since I always judge other countries who naturalize athletes, so now it would be hypocritical of me to celebrate his success. It's even more strange that our wrestling federation basically kicked out our top athlete Giorgos Pilidis (2021 World U23 Champion and our only male wrestler to compete in Tokyo that year), but is shopping for wrestlers from other countries I don't know if this has much to do with the war, Kurugliev is already 30 yo and will be 32 in Paris, and has never competed in the Olympics due to not being the top Russian in his weight class.

There is a rower representing Uzbekistan named Anna Prakaten with decent results, is this Hanna Prakatsen who won silver for ROC at the Tokyo Olympics? I think so...

Good tournament for Maria, unfortunately she will drop from 7 to 10 in the rankings as she was defending runner-up points from last year. However, she has few points to defend until October now, so she has a good chance to rise up again. Last year she lost in her first or second match in Miami, Stuttgart, Madrid, Roland Garros, Eastbourne, Toronto, Cincinnati, US Open, Ostrava, San Diego, so she'll have many opportunities to gain points.

Shooting +1 Christina Moschi (women's 10m air pistol)

I'm late on this but happy that Anna Korakaki finally won a European gold medal after already having Olympic gold and World Championships gold! Also great to see 20 yo Christina Moschi qualify for Paris 2024, crazy that we only have 3 quotas so far across all sports and 2 of them are in women's shooting

Very tough draw for us, Latvia is by far the best team from Pot 4 so we are really unlucky to draw them. Montenegro are also quite strong, although their recent results were surprisingly poor. It will not be easy, but if we make it out of the group then I think we have a very good chance at QF. With Tsineke, Krimili and Bosgana in the team, we will be so much stronger than we were in the qualifying.

2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships: Gold: Miltiadis Tentoglou - men's long jump Silver: Nikolaos Andrikopoulos - men's triple jump Emmanouil Karalis - men's pole vault

In the end the Greek team ended with 3 medals (1 gold and 2 silver). It was more or less expected. Tentoglou getting gold was always extremely likely to happen, now it was his third in a row and he is still undefeated in European competitions. He has a chance now in Budapest to hold all 6 major titles at once (Olympics, World Championships, European Championships, World Indoor Championships, European Indoor Championships, Diamond League). He was so close last year and very unlucky in Eugene to leave with silver. Karalis silver was nice and I knew he would have a good chance for a medal. Andrikopoulos was a surprise, I thought maybe one of the other triple jumpers or Stefanidi could win our other medal. A few others with PBs and SBs was also nice to see.

Duplantis CHOSE to skip this event. It is not their fault that he created an opportunity for the others, and they took advantage of it. Also, one could argue that they are unlucky to compete against Duplantis in all other competitions, and that in another era they would be more successful because they wouldn't have to compete with Mondo. And Blech cleared 5.80 and didn't win a medal, which was the first time in the men's pole vault since Belgrade 2017 that someone cleared 5.80 and still missed the podium. The level was not as low as you make it out to be. I am happy that Karalis finally got a medal after being close many other times (4th at the Tokyo Olympics, 4th at the 2019 European Indoors, 5th at the 2018 World Indoors as an 18 yo...)

Tentoglou 8.30 on his first jump and of course they didn't show it, but they showed other athletes' jumps... Stefanidi disappointing to be 4th, she really just is not the same since the pandemic unfortunately. Hopefully Karalis can win our third medal here as I'm sure Tentoglou will win a medal especially since he is already in the lead.

A nice surprise medal in the men's triple jump from Andrikopoulos! The level was really low for 16.58 to win silver, but it's not his fault. It's disappointing that Tsiamis couldn't get on the podium too. Also great to see our 19 yo Emmanouilidou made the semifinals of the 60m. Unfortunately she did not run well in the semifinals, her heats time of 7.26 would've been enough to qualify for the final but still it was a good debut for her with a PB. Lastly, I'm glad that Tentoglou and Stefanidi made it to the finals without any problems. Hopefully Karalis can do the same.

I'm not sure where to post this but there was a train accident in Greece a couple days ago where so far 57 people died, 85 are injured and 56 are still missing. Emmanouela Katzouraki, who is 21 yo and currently holds the number 2 ranking in the women's skeet shooting, is one of the 85 who is injured. Everyone please keep her and the other victims in your thoughts. She is currently back at her home in Thessaloniki so it seems that she will be okay. Some other, lesser known athletes died (many of the victims were university students going back to Thessaloniki after the holiday of Clean Monday). I apologise for not knowing/remembering their names.

Is this new now, having only 8 finalists for field events? I always remember there being 12. Had there still been 12, we would've qualified all 3 Greeks for the men's triple jump final. Anyways it's still good to have 2 Greek finalists out of 8, and Tsiamis at 41 yo is still impressive EDIT-Never mind, I see that it is not new.

Her ITF profile still says Russia though? Two teenage tennis players, Yaroslava Bartashevich (WTA no. 846) switched to France and Elena Korokozidi (WTA no. 859) switched to Greece. Korokozidi clearly has a Greek surname so I'm not surprised. Also, it looks like she now lives in Greece for the last year or so and has a Greek coach.

TEAM GREECE Men: 60m: Ioannis Nyfantopoulos (GS Eleftherios Venizelos) 800m: Christos Kotitsas (Alexandros Makedonias) 60m Hurdles: Konstantinos Douvalidis (GS Eleftherios Venizelos) High Jump: Antonios Merlos (PAOK) Pole Vault: Emmanouil Karalis (Olympiacos) Long Jump: Miltiadis Tentoglou (GS Kifisias) Triple Jump: Nikolaos Andrikopoulos (Ameinias Mesogeion), Andreas Pantazis (AO Megaron), Dimitrios Tsiamis (Olympiacos) Women: 60m: Polyniki Emmanouilidou (Alexandros Makedonias), Rafailia Spanoudaki (GS Ilioupolis) 400m: Andrianna Ferra (Pannaxiakos), Irini Vasiliou (Ameinias Mesogeion) 3000m: Anastasia Marinakou (Panathinaikos) 60m Hurdles: Anais Karagianni (AEK), Elisavet Pesiridou (GS Ilioupolis) Pole Vault: Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou (AGES Kameiros 2009), Ekaterini Stefanidi (AO Filotheis) Triple Jump: Spyridoula Karydi (AO Kallistos) Tatiana Gusin also qualified in the high jump but withdrew due to injury. Surprised to see Ferra here as she has not yet competed in 2023. Tentoglou is a big favourite for gold. Karalis and Stefanidi also should have chances for medals. It's crazy to see Tsiamis still competing at a high level at age 41. I have high hopes for our teenager Emmanouilidou, who improved her PB this season three times, from 7.49 to 7.39, then to 7.37, and then 7.30.

Greece used to always do that too, I'm glad we seem to have stopped doing that in recent years.

Also I want to add that when Petrounias wins his gymnastics WC gold medals, a lot of people will like/comment/share his posts but I bet you 95% of them have never watched his routines and just celebrate the gold medals, pretending to be such big fans. I am not sure if it is like this in other countries too or just Greeks. Even with tennis, to watch most matches of Tsitsipas you have to pay more money for the channels that show tennis regularly, or go to a cafe/bar that has the channels. It's the same for many other sports in Greece as well so it's really hard for "new" sports to become popular. Roland Garros is the only tournament shown on public TV every year, so you can imagine how big it was in 2021 to have one player in the final and one in the semifinals. Everyone was watching, but since then a lot of these people don't want to pay more money to be able to watch tennis. Also the biggest Greek sports website has an article about Ginnis' medal and there are 0 comments on it. For contrast, Femke Bol's WR article got 9 comments so far, and Medvedev winning Rotterdam ATP 500 got 1 comment, so I'm not really exaggerating when I say no one is talking about him.

Unfortunately no one is really talking about it. I mean I didn't even know these WC were happening until after I read the news that he won the medal. It will be really hard for this sport to get more exposure although this is definitely a step in the right direction. He said in an interview recently that he is a big fan of Tsitsipas and wants to do in alpine skiing what Tsitsipas did for tennis in Greece, although he is already 28 so it will be hard to achieve something like that. Honestly when I heard the news today, I expected more of a reaction on social media but it's basically been forgotten just a few hours later and overshadowed by the AEK vs PAOK derby in football and Cup final in basketball...not to mention we had the National Indoor Championships in athletics where everyone was looking to see what Tentoglou would do today. Sakkari posted about Ginnis on her Instagram but other than that I have not yet seen any famous person mention this. When Korakaki for example wins shooting WC medals, again there is very little interest generally, so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised... That is correct. At the Winter Olympics our best result ever was 13th place. I hope Ginnis can break this record. He missed Beijing 2022 due to injury unfortunately. The people on the ice hockey roster are actually Greeks from Greece, not from the Greek diaspora, so that basically confirms the level must have been extremely low those years if we were able to win medals