Makedonas

These are not necessarily my favourite moments, but what I think were most remembered in my country: 1. Hosting the 2004 Olympics - everything about it! 2. Pyrros Dimas winning bronze at home at the 2004 Olympics, after he won gold in 1992, 1996, and 2000. Although he could not win the gold again, this medal had more sentimental value than the golds he won, and also it was the last competition of his career. 3. Konstantinos Kenteris gold in the 200m at the 2000 Olympics. This is something everyone remembers. 4. Paraskevi Patoulidou gold in 100m hurdles at the 1992 Olympics. First Greek woman to win an Olympic medal, and she became very famous for her slogan "For Greece, dammit!" 5. Fani Halkia gold in the 400m hurdles at the 2004 Olympics. Every Greek remembers where they were that night. As you can see the sprint/hurdles gold medals got so much more attention than gold medals in sailing, gymnastics, field events, etc.

1. Miltiadis Tentoglou (athletics - men's long jump) I think this is the most obvious choice for us, he won gold in Tokyo and seems to be the overwhelming favourite to win gold in Paris despite only winning silver at the 2022 World Championships (although he did win gold at the 2022 World Indoor Championships). 2. Eleftherios Petrounias (gymnastics - men's rings) He won gold in Rio and bronze in Tokyo. He seems to be back on track this year after dealing with injuries for a couple years. He won gold at the European Championships. He didn't compete at the World Championships, but his score at the European Championships would've been enough for gold at the World Championships. 3. Elina Tzengko (athletics - women's javelin throw) She won gold at the European Championships this year as a 19 year old with 65.81m. She has already established herself as a contender for gold in Paris, and since she is so young she will likely improve even more over the next two years. 4. Men's National Team (water polo) We won silver in Tokyo with a young team. In 2022 we had some injuries but still managed to win bronze at the World Championships. I think we will do better at the 2023 World Championships with a full, healthy team hopefully. 5. Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas (tennis - mixed doubles) This might sound surprising but I think they will do better now than they did in Tokyo. In Tokyo, Tsitsipas was injured and they lost in the quarterfinals to Australia. Sakkari has also improved a lot since Tokyo and became a top player. Having the Olympics on clay will also benefit them as they play better on that surface, especially Tsitsipas. Also he is a good doubles player with good volleys, and Maria is not but she has a good serve which is important for women to have in mixed doubles. I didn't include our other Olympic gold medalists. Anna Korakaki would probably be number 6, but shooting is too random for us to expect a gold from her. Stefanos Ntouskos and Ekaterini Stefanidi I think can win medals in Paris but I don't think gold.

Most of us don't even know the full anthem, just the first part

Congratulations to our French friends for winning the Totallympics Derby. Sorry to our Polish friends.

We are only sending three swimmers: Apostolos Christou, Kristian Gkolomeev, and Andreas Vazaios.

No, I do not. Perhaps they can aim to make a 24 team Euros but even that will be difficult for them.

For us we have only made the World Cup three times in our history, so just being there is a big achievement although our fans had very high (and sometimes unrealistic) expectations since Euro 2004 so anything else was seen as a disappointment. We also have a recency bias of making the World Cup, whereas prior to 2010 we only ever qualified once. In 2016 I was obviously upset that Greece didn't qualify, but thought it would be nice for once to watch the tournament without stress. However, after a while I feel left out Our national team has been in shambles since 2014, we had many players doing well for top European clubs but either not playing for the national team or playing a lot worse for the national team, and a lot of drama with coaches etc. We just won our Nations League group, so hopefully we are on the right track again.

There was another window last week, no one cares? Our girls had an easy win at home against Estonia by 25 points. Then we beat Great Britain by 7 at home (it was a very close game until the final minutes). 38 yo Evdokia Stamati was the unlikely hero with two late 3 pointers. We basically played the same 6-7 players for the whole game. We lack bench depth but we are strong in every position, and with our NCAA girls we will have more bench depth at Eurobasket. We are now 4-0 and still on track to make Paris 2024. Nikolopoulou for some reason was not called up which is weird, I wonder if she is done with the national team, she is only 31 yo so I hope not. I was critical of her in the past because I didn't think she should've been playing so much, but I still think she should be on the roster on the bench. Spyridopoulou was not called up either, she's now 34 yo but I think she is still useful (although her club form seems to have regressed, still she is experienced). I mean Sotiriou and Stamati are both 38 yo and still playing... I would like our Eurobasket team to look like this. Alternates in parenthesis because I'm sure there will be injuries/absences: G: Stamolamprou, Pavlopoulou, Nikolopoulou, Tsineke, Stamati, Krimili (Vintsilaiou, Alexandri) F: Christinaki, Bosgana, Sotiriou, Spyridopoulou (Chatzileonti, Karlafti) C: Fasoula, Spanou (Papadopoulou)

I am flattered that you included Greece We definitely could make it. Tsimikas (Liverpool) and Vlachodimos (Benfica) are elite in my opinion. I think we need another 2-3 players to be at that level, and Chatzidiakos (AZ Alkmaar), Mavropanos (Vfb Stuttgart), and Pavlidis (AZ Alkmaar) all seem to be heading in that direction to play for big European clubs, all are having very good seasons and seem to be taking their games to the next level. And of course I still have faith in Retsos if he can finally stay healthy, as well as some of our veteran players who are solid like Bakasetas, Fortounis, Pelkas... Strikers Fountas and Giakoumakis are streaky but when in form they know how to find the back of the net very often.

Denmark and Portugal each with two teams?

He was provoking the entire game, let's not act like he is innocent. It's funny him and Shaqiri are such big Albanian patriots, yet they choose to be in the national team of Switzerland and not Albania...

I have not watched much of this World Cup compared to what I usually do. Some thoughts though: 1. It really stinks to not have your country there. Many Greeks complained about our team in 2010 (group stage) and 2014 (Round of 16), and always being negative and saying that it would be better to avoid embarrassment and not qualify. Well, I wonder what these 'Greeks' think now, because for me I would rather lose in the group stage every time than not qualify at all. I hope we will be back in 2026 but it will be difficult... 2. Qatar is a joke. I don't need to say more about this. 3. I hope Switzerland lose as soon as possible. Their radical non-Swiss 'fans' are insufferable. I don't need to say more. Serbians understand me on this

Wow, for Greece tickets are like 10-20 euros to watch the national team

Apparently he is not doing well but is still alive...

We got 9th place in the women's sabre team. I think we were unlucky to have to play South Korea so early, as we beat two top 10 opponents (USA and Poland). Still, we are slowly moving up the rankings and I believe soon we will be in the top 10 where we belong. I must say it is a shame that we probably will only have one woman at the Olympics when we have two ranked in the top 6 in this discipline, really I wish they would both get a chance but it will be very hard to make it in the team event. However, I think for Los Angeles 2028 we will have a better chance as we'll have more time to get a good third fencer.

We had a bad loss against Latvia, we should beat Belgium tomorrow as SOME of our Euroleague guys will be there. Also I want to mention that Partizan is letting their Serbian players play for the Serbian national team during this window, but they are not letting Papapetrou play for Greece. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are in the same group as us of course. So much for the "brotherhood" between our two nations...

^For a second I read that as "Simone Biles"

My personal votes: 12 pts- 11- 10- 9- 8- 7- 6- 5- 4- 3- 2- 1- So my top 6 all got high points from Greece, and none of the rest got any points Keep trying, I was thinking the same for Greece especially after TAISC this year when I thought our song was beautiful but it didn't place well, and now after never being top 10 we finished not only top 10 but top 5 today!

Top 5 for

Officially guaranteed our first ever top 10 finish, hopefully it will be out first top 5 also!

I guess we no longer have a chance to make the podium Still we are looking likely to make our first top 10 finish ever in either TAISC or TOISC!

@Werloc getting my hopes up for nothing

I had a feeling Sweden would give us high points considering the connections that Antique have with Sweden That was what we were hoping for when we selected it! We have never done well at any TISC despite being one of the few nations with many many participations. This song was very popular in the late 90s/early 00s in many other countries, and it is one of the most viewed Greek songs on Youtube even though Youtube didn't exist back then. This makes us so happy, we tried a lot to do different things in the last few years because we wanted to finally make the top 10 after so many years of trying. I was starting to give up to be honest.

Maria played very well in the first two matches, I didn't get to see the one vs Jabeur but that was the easiest one. No matter what happens now I am glad she was able to have a strong finish to the year as she did not do so well in the middle of the year after being very good at the start of the year.