Makedonas

Alexandros Nikolaidis (taekwondo) passed away at the age of 42 due to cancer. He won silver medals at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, and was Greece's flag bearer for the opening ceremony at London 2012.

I think the Slovaks have really gone downhill in women's tennis. Kuzmova and Schmiedlova were a lot better earlier in their careers than they are now (I remember Schmiedlova had an embarrassing losing streak). Is Cepelova ever coming back after having a baby? She also similarly had her best results earlier in her career. Personally I think Cibulkova and Rybarikova retired too young. And where is Kucova these days?

Still no wins for us, however with Teltsidou and Tselidis (our two best) competing tomorrow I am optimistic that will change.

Well she will be representing Portugal at the upcoming World Championships, and at all regattas afterwards. So Portugal gets the number 3 ranked sailor in the world in this class just because she wanted to find a new country. I wonder what incentives they are offering her, because everyone knows she is Greek and has no connection with Portugal... I would say I wish her the best but that would be a lie, the truth is I couldn't care less about her career anymore. Sorry if that sounds mean but at least I am an honest person...I won't wish her good luck because it would be fake. Hopefully our problematic federations (sailing, rowing, wrestling) get their acts together so we don't lose any more athletes (we have 2 rowers and 1 wrestler who all were at Tokyo 2020 and currently have publicized issues with the federations but for now the athletes say they still want to represent Greece and seem hopeful that they will build better relations with their federations). And the rowers are always thanking the Hellenic Olympic Committee for their help so I'd be shocked if they switched nationalities.

Krejcikova looking to do what Kontaveit did at the end of 2021...

Of course a lot of hateful comments on Greek sports sites today, as if we ever had a men's tennis player who was anywhere near his level before... I'm too lazy to check but I think he was originally 2-1 against Novak. A lot of people focus on him being 0-9 in ATP 500 finals, and it's a weird statistic, but most of those matches were against the Big 3, and anyways he has won the ATP Finals and two Masters 1000s which are all more important than 500s. If he played Tokyo instead of Astana, I think he would've won the final as that tournament was a lot weaker than Astana even though both were 500s.

Mitas is 7th in the men's skeet with 97, hoping he can get us our first quota place here. Would be extra nice for him as he missed Tokyo despite being in London and Rio!

Tsitsipas beats two fellow top-10 opponents in Hurkacz and Rublev to make the final of ATP 500 in Kazakhstan. He will face the winner of Medvedev vs Djokovic. Suddenly his haters are silent and no one says he needs a new coach, but if he loses tomorrow they will magically re-appear...

GREECE

Sofia Ifadidou (heptathlon) - She competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. In London she set the Olympic heptathlon javelin record. She will compete next month in the Athens marathon. Interesting choice for her last competition although it is symbolic. After that she will compete in December in a small road race in her hometown of Veria.

After 19 years of being "homeless," AEK Athens FC new stadium is finally ready and they had a grand opening celebration:

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