Makedonas

Stefanidi gives us the third medal here, although I was hoping it would be our third gold. Still nice for her to be on a major podium again for the first time since the 2019 World Championships and doing so with a SB! Frantzeskakis into the men's hammer final as expected. He is really doing better than Anastasakis who once again failed in qualifying at a major competition... I'm surprised Karydi made it to the women's triple jump final. She's having a horrible season but the level is so low that it makes her look decent. Also pleased to see Gnafaki make it to the 400 hurdles semifinals with a new PB! She had 58.48 as a 19 year old in 2016 and didn't improve her PB until 2020! Now she has improved it 5 more times in the last two years, and here in Munich up to 56.45. Another new PB in the semifinals would be awesome. I'm pleased to see that she is finally back on the right track after years of struggling. The bad news for us is that one of our women's 100 hurdles, Anais Karagianni, had to pull out due to injury. She joins the list of female track athletes (Emmanouilidou and Vasiliou as well) that had to withdraw from these Championships

Of course she had another SB in last night's final here Greece in women's pole vault since 2012 (Kyriakopoulou bronze), 2014 (Stefanidi silver), 2016 (Stefanidi gold), 2018 (Stefanidi gold and Kyriakopoulou silver), 2022 (Stefanidi silver). Hope we can keep it going and be like Poland in women's hammer

Well they didn't compete in the relay, we sent all of our reserves to the heats and they finished in 10th place. Anyways individually we got silver from Christou, who was 0.03s behind Ceccon, and bronze from Gkolomeev which is nice considering he was far from his best this year. Vazaios finished 6th in his final. Overall, a nice championships for Greece with 3 medals, the same amount as last year. We had an NR and a bunch of PBs as well. You forgot to mention Pilato! What?! People always say Greek and Lithuanian surnames sound similar (because of the -s endings), but Pavlidi surely has Greek origins? I've never heard of Greeks living in Lithuania except if they played basketball there, what's his story?! I'm very curious...

We have 4 gold but only one is in an Olympic event Christou (men's 100 backstroke, missed it by 0.03s), Ntouskos (men's single sculls, missed it by 0.29s), and Stefanidi (women's pole vault, was leading the whole time until the last height) were so close to golds in Olympic events...

2022 European Championships: GOLD: Apostolos Christou - Men's 50m backstroke SILVER: Apostolos Christou - Men's 100m backstroke BRONZE: Kristian Gkolomeev - Men's 50m freestyle

Quarterfinals: 75 - 67

She is still talking about this. "I would very much like the sport to change...the same opportunities for distinction based on what we do in the water and not based on which country we represent or what public relations we have" In my opinion she has a very good point, only in this sport do we know who wins the medals before the competition even begins... Greece competed in 7 events here, got one bronze and 6 4th place finishes. I mean come on, all the same countries won all the same medals in the same order...

Now it's the Men's Youth World Championships. Unfortunately our boys lost 9-8 to Spain today in the quarterfinals. The referees were tragic I must say... The big surprise is that won 12-7 against to make the semifinals I always wondered why the Dutch men were not a top team in water polo while their women are, maybe this new generation is really good though?! We beat them only 12-11 in the group stage. I was surprised it was so close but I guess the Dutch really are good

Our u16 men's team into the semifinals even without Liotopoulos

Some of the others today were disappointing. Stamatia Scarvelis missing out on the women's hammer final was shocking. She competed in 10 meets this season. Her two worst performances were the World Championships and European Championships What is worse is that at all 8 other meets she threw over 67.68 (the necessary height to make the final here in Munich), and most of those times were over 70m. She seems to really struggle in these big events... Chrysoula Anagnostopoulou finished 12th (last) in the women's discus final. I was definitely not expecting a medal or anything, but a better placement would've been nice and it would've helped her in the world rankings as well (to get into the 2023 World Championships and 2024 Olympics). Instead, she threw a shocking 56.10 which was her worst result of the season in 12 competitions. Like Scarvelis, she also flopped on the big stage although at least she made it to the final... Vasiliki Chaitidou finished a respectable 16th place in the women's long jump considering it was her first major competition and she would've needed to equal her PB to make the final anyways. Antonios Merlos not making the men's high jump final was disappointing but not too surprising, and it's good that overall he had a productive year after not doing well the past few years, he seems on the right track again. I don't really have any comments on anyone else who competed today for us, too insignificant for me to say anything

Germany is good for us, we have only ever finished top 10 in the medals table twice at the European Championships, and both times were in Germany. Munich 2002 we were 5th with 4-0-2, and Berlin 2018 we were also 5th with 3-2-1. Munich 2022 is off to a good start so far, we have 2-0-0 38 yo Antigoni Drisbioti winning gold in the women's 35km walk was a great start for us. I expected a medal from her but didn't think she'd get gold. She is really having her best results in the last year. 8th at the Tokyo Olympics (20km) and 4th at the World Championships in Eugene (35km). The Hellenic Olympic Committee didn't give her funding because she is "too old" according to them (which everyone who placed top 8 in Tokyo got except those after 30 yo like her and Kyriakopoulou). Her story is really cool too and she's starting to get some recognition in Greece finally, although I guarantee that 99% of the people congratulating her have never watched race walking and probably never will... Tentoglou winning gold was obviously expected, and I'm glad he was able to do it with a WL/CR. This was also his second best outdoor performance of his career (he has 8.60 from last year) and third overall (he had 8.55 at the World Indoors this year). He still doesn't have the NR (8.66) which is crazy and I thought he would do it this year (though he still has Diamond League after this). His 8.52 jump today was far from perfect, he left a lot of space and could've definitely gotten over 8.60, plus the conditions weren't the best. Also he left the last 2 jumps and didn't make attempts, I really wanted him to get over 8.60 again and get a new PB and the NR but I guess I'll have to wait

Solid day for us with our guys Christou (100 backstroke), Gkolomeev (50 freestyle) and Vazaios (200 IM) all qualifying for their finals. Could be a busy day for them tomorrow as I hope they will also be competing in the men's 4x100 medley relay together and hopefully in the final there too. All three of them have won European medals in these races in the past, so hoping for at least two more medals tomorrow

Round of 16: 84 - 62

Tentoglou only 7.94 but still it was the 2nd best of everyone in qualifying. What a weak event. Anything other than gold would be a massive disappointment... Good to see Anagnostopoulou make her third consecutive European Championships final Hoping she can be top 8 for the first time here... All three Greek male triple jumpers under 16m Although 40 yo Tsiamis was actually very close to making the final. He said this would be his last season but now he hasn't made any official announcement, I wonder if he is thinking to continue another year or two...

She has not been herself since the pandemic, skipped indoor seasons in 2021 and 2022. Her only major championships results were 4th at the Tokyo Olympics and 5th in Eugene, so actually not too bad but both times she had SBs. Let's see if she can win a medal here. She won silver in 2014, gold in both 2016 and 2018 so it will be important for her although who knows. The level is low this year so it's a big chance for her. We had 3 women in the 2018 pole vault final and won gold and silver there, this year we are just hoping Stefanidi can win some type of medal...

Ο Απόστολος Χρήστου έγινε πρωταθλητής Ευρώπης, κατακτώντας το χρυσό μετάλλιο στα 50μ. ύπτιο στη Ρώμη, φθάνοντας στη μεγαλύτερη επιτυχία της καριέρας του και στο χρυσό μετάλλιο που τόσο πολύ επιζητούσε. Ο Απόστολος Χρήστου «ντύθηκε»... αυτοκράτορας στη Ρώμη και έγινε πρωταθλητής Ευρώπης στα 50μ. ύπτιο, φθάνοντας σε ένα χρυσό μετάλλιο που τόσο πολύ κυνηγούσε. Ο 26χρονος πρωταθλητής μετά από χαμένες ευκαιρίες, αυτή τη φορά απέδειξε πως ήταν το φαβορί. Μπήκε στον τελικό με τον καλύτερο χρόνο του ημιτελικού (24.48), κατέβηκε στα 24.36, πετυχαίνοντας πανελλήνιο ρεκόρ, «σβήνοντας» τα 24.39 που σημείωσε στις 24 Ιουνίου στον ημιτελικό του παγκοσμίου πρωταθλήματος της Βουδαπέστης. Έπειτα από τρία διαδοχικά χάλκινα μετάλλια σε ευρωπαϊκά πρωταθλήματα, αλλά στα 100μ. ύπτιο (Λονδίνο 2016, Γλασκώβη 2018, Βουδαπέστη 2020) ο κολυμβητής του Ολυμπιακού θα φορέσει-επιτέλους- το χρυσό μετάλλιο στο στήθος του, στη μεγαλύτερη μέχρι τώρα στιγμή της καριέρας του. Αυτή τη φορά ο Απόστολος Χρήστου είδε τον κόπους του να αποφέρουν χρυσάφι, δικαιώνοντας πρώτα από όλα τον εαυτό του και κάνοντας το καλύτερο δώρο στον εορτάζοντα σήμερα προπονητή του, Παναγιώτη Βελέντζα. Από τη στιγμή που ο Χρήστου κολύμπησε στα 24.36 ήταν σχεδόν αδύνατο να χάσει την πρώτη θέση, ακόμα και από τον γηπεδούχο Τόμας Τσεκόν, που σημείωσε 24.40 και πήρε το ασημένιο μετάλλιο. Οι δυο τους μονομάχησαν για το χρυσό μετάλλιο μέχρι την τελευταία χεριά και η αντίδραση από τον Χρήστου στο τέλος, απόλυτα χαρακτηριστική. Οι υπόλοιποι κολύμπησαν για το χάλκινο μετάλλιο, που πήγε στον Γερμανό, Όλε Μπραουνσβάιχ με 24.68.

GOLD for Christou in the men's 50 backstroke! After bronze medals in the 100 in London, Glasgow, and Budapest, he finally won gold at the European Championships. I hope he can do it in the 100 too. Also he has a history of swimming faster in the heats/semifinals than final, so I'm glad that was not the case this time and he was able to win gold. I believe this is only our 6th European swimming gold ever. He has improved a lot the last few years, I think he has a chance for a medal in Paris if he keeps this up, we'll see. Sad that Ntountounaki doesn't get a medal this time, 4th in the 50 fly (same result as last year) and 5th in the 100 fly (she won gold last year).

https://sportsfeed.gr/romi-2022-protathlitis-eyropis-o-christoy/ You can watch the 50m backstroke here

Just look at the artistic swimming results here, we finished 4th in 5 or 6 different events so far in just that one sport...

FIBA U16 European Championship 2022 75 - 47 78 - 48 79 - 45

I didn't feel that way when I went to Hungary (although I was only in Budapest so I'd imagine outside less people speak English). I was shocked in Bulgaria, very few people spoke English including in Sofia. Surely they have the lowest percentage of English speakers in the EU.

^We won by 30 points. The crowd kept chanting "Turkiye-Turkiye" but we had the last laugh in the end Sadly our best guard, Eleftherios Liotopoulos, got injured and will be out for the rest of the tournament. Our girls lost to Israel, so they got relegated. I also wonder if a team has ever won 3 games and still gotten relegated? We must be breaking all kinds of records with this team

2022 European Rowing Championships Gold: Antonios Papakonstantinou (men's lightweight single sculls) Silver: Evangelia Anastasiadou (women's single sculls) Zoi Fitsiou (women's lightweight single sculls) Stefanos Ntouskos (men's single sculls)

I underestimated our chances in the end, we got 4 medals, the most since 2011 for us. Papakonstantinou gold which was pretty much expected. Fitsiou silver which was a nice surprise, I didn't really expect it but was hoping she could sneak a bronze. Anastasiadou silver which is amazing considering she is 20 years old, 165 cm and won silver in the women's sculls beating the likes of Foester and Lobnig. Ntouskos silver, I hope he can really continue to increase his medal collection over the next few years. Kalandaridis/Palaiopanos 5th in the men's double which is a respectable result for the young crew in a tough event. Overall a good regatta for Greece (which could have been a disaster after several of our rowers tested positive for Covid and had to withdraw), we've won several medals at all four major regattas so far this year (and gold in each, actually this was the only time we only won one gold). I'm curious to see how much these young athletes between now and Paris 2024.

Congratulations on the gold! I'm happy Ntouskos won the silver, but it's bittersweet as he was so close to gold. Still, it was Ntouskos' second medal at the senior level (his first was the Olympic gold last year), which is really good, especially since a particular German on this site was calling his gold last year suspicious... The cameramen are embarrassing. They showed Foester (bronze) before Anastasiadou (silver) in the women's single which was annoying but I understood as Foester is German and this is in Germany. However, they did not show Ntouskos' celebration once! They showed Vasilev (bronze) and Zeidler (4th) reacting after the finish line, but never once did we get to see Ntouskos' reaction/celebration. Absolutely shameful. If this was in Greece, I can't imagine what the Germans would say if we did not show their silver medalist but showed the bronze and 4th place... I watch a lot of rowing and I've never seen them show the bronze medalist and 4th place but not the silver medalist...