Makedonas

2022 European U21 Championships: GOLD: Men's -87 kg - Vasilios Tholiotis SILVER: Men's -87 kg - Ioannis Papadopoulos Women's -46 kg - Despina Pantou BRONZE: Men's -80 kg - Georgios Pantazis Women's -57 kg - Konstantina Polychroni Women's +78 kg - Agoritsa Kitsiou Women's - 62 kg - Styliani Marentaki Men's +87 kg - Filippos Dimitrakopoulos

Maria's serve is so bad these days, in the last few years it was such a big weapon. This was an embarrassing loss... ...but not all hope is lost, she lost her first five ITF finals before she finally won one. And people can make jokes about Rabat all they want, but she beat Mertens and Konta there, it's not like her draw was a total joke (now Parma which she did not win is a different story...). She is a hard worker and a fighter, I give her credit for showing up when she knows she's in a slump unlike others like Osaka who would rather hide at home than play and lose...

In the end we are competing at the European Junior and Under-23 Championships despite this: https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1127661/dimas-weightlifting-dope No surprise that Albania still hates Dimas, their government discriminated against the Greek minority for decades and deny their existence and then get angry when they choose to win medals for Greece instead of Albania...

Our swimming federation announced more difficult standards than FINA's, so as of now we only have 3 athletes going (Christou, Gkolomeev, Vazaios) and maybe there is a chance for 1-2 more but that's it...

Interesting that Tsoutlasvili is currently the only Greek qualified. I'm not really expecting him to make it but he's only 20 yo so it would be nice. Teltsidou who was 7th in Tokyo really needs to get her act together, she's 33rd in the rankings for women's 70 kg. Her and Tselidis are the ones I expect to qualify to Paris. Small chance to Karakazidi and I guess Tsoutlasvili as well. It seems that Azoidis is retired which is a shame as he is only 29, and Ntanatsidis seems to have retired after competing in Tokyo which is also a shame as he was only 28 then and is 29 now. I hoped to have 3-4 judoka in Paris but it seems very unlikely now. We might not even have any...

Chatzitsakiroglou 9th in the men's trap is not a bad result. He's very young, I hope he can qualify for Paris (which I have been expecting him to do!)

I can only imagine what the reaction would be if Tsitsipas called Tiafoe the name of a food associated with his people....double standards of course. What an odd thing for him to say...

Europe deserved to lose after playing Andy Murray so much. That was clearly just for publicity and because it was in London, with his current level he has no business in this team, sorry.

I'm copying @OlympicIRLhere and doing the same for the Greek team Overall picture: 3 A-Finals in Olympic class events 1 silver and 1 5th place in non-Olympic class events If we were to project forward 12 months, 3 boats would qualify to Paris 2024 if they replicate these results at the next World Championships. It's also important to note that our men's lightweight double sculls and women's pair would have very good chances as well in my opinion (we did not send crews to Racice for those boats). As I mentioned before Fragkou/Natsioula are super young and for various reasons were not well-prepared for these Championships. If they stick together I think they'll improve a lot over the next 12-18 months and qualify for Paris. Fragkou won gold this year in the women's pair at both the World U23s and European U23s, while Natsioula won gold in the women's double at the European U19s, World U19s (with a world's best time), and European U23s. Together they rowed twice in the past, winning bronze in 2020 at the European U19s, and gold in 2021 at the European U19s, so this was actually the first time they didn't win a medal together. Papakonstantinou won silver in the men's lightweight single and also won gold in that event last month at the European Championships. He is only 23 yo and has a lot of experience and has won a lot of medals at the U23 level. For example, last year he won gold in the men's lightweight single at the World U23s. Obviously he needs a good partner to compete in the lightweight double as the lightweight single is not an Olympic event. 21 yo Petros Gkaidatzis won gold three weeks ago in the men's lightweight single at the European U23s. Him and Papakonstantinou have rowed together in the past, winning gold in the men's lightweight double at the 2019 European U23s. I think we'll qualify in the women's pair. In Tokyo we had 20 yos Christina Bourmpou and Maria Kyridou finish 5th in the A Final. Neither competed here in Racice as they both study in the United States and had to go back. Bourmpou won gold this summer at the World U23s and European U23s, but had a disappointing European Championships where she finished 6th (with Kyridou they won bronze in 2020 and got 4th in 2021). Kyridou did not compete for the national team this year as her and her sister Anneta (who finished 10th in the women's single in Tokyo as a 22 yo) were suspended from the national team for one year. They are actually training to compete together in the pair... ...which means we have 3 girls but only two spots, which opens up the door for a possible women's four as well...perhaps Fragkou can join them and then Dalidou (gold in W2X at European U19s and World U19s this year) or Gkogkou (gold in W1X at European U19s and World U19s this year) could join Natsioula in the double (and the other can try in the single perhaps)...or we can have both a pair and a four, we also have Argyraki/Asvesta who together in the women's pair won gold at both the European U19s and World U19s this year...plus we have Aspasia Christodoulidis who just won her second consecutive NCAA Championships and recently graduated, or Dimitra Tsamopoulou who has also won an NCAA Championship and will be graduating this year and previously won gold for us at the World U23s with Kyridou in 2019. We could also try to see if the lightweight rower Zoi Fitsiou (who was silver in LW1X at the Europeans and 5th here in Racice) can qualify in W1X... We have a lot of options and need to figure out crews so that next year we can get as many Olympic quotas as possible. Of course a lot can change, for example last year we were not talking about Dalidou or Kontou and now both are on our radar, we'll probably have another one or two teenagers next year who we can consider. I think we should aim to qualify M1X, M2X, W1X, LM2X, W2-, W2X, LW2X, W4-. Then we can also try another men's boat (maybe M2- or M4X) and if we can then W4X but I don't think we have enough athletes for that. It might even be more realistic to try to have some girls double up and qualify the W8+ which is something we have never attempted but seeing Romania and the Netherlands double up, it could be an option for us (though probably an unrealistic dream). Event Athlete(s) Final Place in Final Overall Rank Men's Single Sculls Stefanos Ntouskos (25) A 6th 6th Top 9 next year Worlds qualify for Paris 2024 Men's Double Sculls Ioannis Kalandaridis (24) Athanasios Palaiopanos (23) A 6th 6th Top 11 next year Worlds qualify for Paris 2024 Women's Lightweight Double Sculls Evangelia Anastasiadou (20) Dimitra-Eleni Kontou (17) A 6th 6th Top 7 next year Worlds qualify for Paris 2024 Women's Double Sculls Evangelia Fragkou (19) Styliani Natsioula (17) C 3rd 15th Top 11 next year Worlds qualify for Paris 2024

What an incredible regatta for the Dutch, wow! It's impressive how well they do when in U19 and U23 events they are rather average. Definitely they have a good system, the opposite of ours where we do so well at the U19 and U23 levels and not so well after that... Pretty disappointing day for us, two 6th place finishes in A Finals. So we had three A Finals here, and all finished in 6th place. For M2X and LW2X they are good results, but I was really hoping Ntouskos could get a medal. Fragkou/Natsioula coming in 15th place overall in W2X (out of 17 crews), once again leading the race at 1000m, this time in the C Final, only to have a poor second half of the race especially the last 500m. I won't be too harsh on them as they are both teenagers and were in different boats all year long and only trained about 10 days together, plus Fragkou was in sweep events all year long and Natsioula recently recovered from Covid which kept her out of training.

We led 5-4 and next thing you know it was 5-8 Another 4th place for Canada 2.0... On the bright side we had a very young team and many guys will be back next time.

2022 World Rowing Championships Silver: Antonios Papakonstantinou (men's lightweight single sculls)

We lost 12-11 to Spain and will face Hungary for bronze I can't say I'm surprised, it seems like we always lose to Spain no matter the gender or age group

Papakonstantinou winning silver in LM1X was disappointing, really expected him to win gold. He hadn't lost a race all season, and beat Soares multiple times but couldn't do it yesterday. Fitsiou 5th in LW1X is also a decent result. I figured it would be hard for her to win a medal here. Anastasiadou/Kontou 6th in LW2X is a very good result. Kontou couldn't compete at the Europeans because she tested positive for Covid, so this was a good indication of where they are at. Kontou now should celebrate her 17th birthday and prepare for the 2023 season, which can be huge for her with European U19s, World U19s, European U23s, World U23s (hopefully with gold medals at all) and World Championships where I hope she can qualify for the Olympics. Let's see what happens tomorrow, I hope Ntouskos can win a medal

This is the best we've done in a while, I can't remember the last time we had 3 Olympic boats in A Finals, maybe 2011 (but I'm too lazy to search if we've done it since then). And that is without Bourmpou and the Kyridou sisters, with a combination of the two of them in the women's pair I'm sure that would've been another final. All of this applies to Greece as well, so you can imagine how disappointing it was that Sofia Asoumanaki who is 193cm (very rare for Greek women) hasn't competed for the national team since age 21, after getting silver in W2X at the World Championships as an 18yo and 4th at the Rio Olympics as a 19 yo. Ntouskos was going to retire after Tokyo but the gold medal changed his life with some sponsors. Otherwise, we rarely have rowers past the age of 22/23 in our national teams...

We beat Croatia 8-7 to make the semifinals of the Men's U19 European Championships. We will now play Spain. After 12 medals from our national teams, but none of them gold, in the last two years, maybe this time we will finally win gold? Lucky number 13?!

Do you mean U23? Because junior = U19 And yeah, I'd like to think Fragkou/Natsioula not peaking here is part of that as well. Natsioula won gold at the European U19s, World U19s and European U23s all this year. Missed the European seniors due to covid, and Fragkou won gold in the World U23s and European U23s but in the pair instead of the double, so I'll blame it all on that

A lot of discussion about lightweight rowing possibly dying out. It would be sad to see it go (I guess I'm biased because Greece has good lightweight rowers), but also I think people underestimate how good some of these lightweight rowers are. 20 yo Evangelia Anastasiadou, who is 165cm, won silver in W1X at the European Championships last month, beating out the likes of Alexandra Foester and Magdalena Lobnig. And let's not forget that Stefanos Ntouskos competed in a lightweight event in Rio, and then in Tokyo won gold in M1X.

Ntouskos finishing 2nd in his quarterfinal is a bit disappointing although I still like his chances to win a medal. After all, he finished 2nd in his quarterfinal in Tokyo and still went on to win Olympic gold Papakonstantinou just incredible. 1st in his quarterfinal and 1st in his semifinal. He seems to be the favourite to win gold here. Kalandaridis/Palaiopanos finishing 2nd in their quarterfinal is also good, they're looking in good shape to make it to Paris. Tokyo was a joke where we only had 1 male rower after having 8 male rowers in both London and Rio, so with them doing well it gives us hope to have a bigger team again. Fragkou/Natsioula coming 5th out of 6th in the repechage is disappointing. They led after 1000m and were 3rd after 1500m. It seems they just ran out of gas in the end, but both are just teenagers. They have 3 full days to rest before Sunday's C Final so hopefully they can have a good showing there. I still think this is a boat that can make it to Paris as they are so young and should do much better next year. Fitsiou finished 2nd in her semifinal which is great. She was poor in the heats (4th) but is doing better now. I'm not confident in her winning a medal although I'd happily be proven wrong. Although she's a lightweight rower I'd like to see her try to qualify in the women's single for Paris. Anastasiadou/Kontou making the final is just incredible. They are 20 and 16 (!!!) and made the A Final of an Olympic boat class at the World Championships. Again, I see no reason why we can't expect a medal from them in Paris provided they stay healthy. Both of them (especially Kontou) will probably be so much better in two years.

I'm in for Greece

2022 World Wrestling Championships: BRONZE Maria Prevolaraki (Women's Freestyle 53 kg)

Prevolaraki bronze in women's 53 kg So she has 3 World Championships medals in her career. 2012 bronze, 2017 bronze, 2022 bronze. It's too bad she said she will retire after Paris 2024, because she would win a bronze again in 2027 She's had a good year as she also won silver at the European Championships and gold at the Mediterranean Games Hopefully she can finally win an Olympic medal in Paris...

Recap of Greek boats so far: M1X: Ntouskos won his heat as expected, let's see how he does from here on. Anything less than a medal would be disappointing. LM1X: Papakonstantinou won his heat as expected and I would be surprised if he doesn't take a medal. Need to get him a good partner for the LM2X so he can qualify to Paris. Perhaps Gkaidatzis who won gold at the European U23 Championships in LM1X just a few weeks ago. They already won gold together in LM2X at the 2019 European U23 Championships. M2X: Kalandaridis/Palaiopanos made it to the quarterfinals and let's see what they can do. They both won a lot of medals in the youth categories but struggled so far in seniors, although their 5th place at last month's European Championships shows that they can make it to Paris. LW1X: Fitsiou is not looking too great here after taking silver at the European Championships, although she did win her repechage to advance to the semifinals. I will be happy if she makes the A Final. W2X: Fragkou and Natsioula were disappointing finishing 5th in their heat. Still, they are 19 and 17 so they are young although I expected better from them as both won a bunch of gold medals in U23/U19 categories over the last two years. Hoping for an improved performance in the repechage which would see them qualify for the semifinals. LW2X: Our girls are incredible. 20 yo Anastasiadou and 16 yo (!!!) Kontou finished 2nd in their heat and 1st in the repechage (beating Tokyo 2020 gold medalists Italy). That is amazing for their ages. I am not sure if they can win a medal but the first goal is to make the A Final. If they can make top 6 in 2022, I see now reason why they can't win a medal in Paris when they are older and more experienced. Let's see first how they do here though. I'm disappointed we didn't send a women's pair. Bourmpou/Fragkou won gold at the World U23s and European U23s, but Bourmpou had to go back to Yale University for studies and we put Fragkou in the women's double. Argyraki/Asvesta who won gold at the World U19s and European U19s I guess are too young for this level.

94 - 88 in the fourth and final game of the day. Almost...

5th place in the end isn't such a horrible result for us I guess, as I said we weren't expecting to win a medal here. Hopefully in 2024 we can finally win our first European medal...