Makedonas

Georgiadou is now 5th in the rankings It's incredible how much she improved in the last year since she was denied the chance to qualify for Tokyo Gkountoura is also still top 10, it's great to have two Greeks in the top 10. I didn't think it was possible after Vougiouka retired in 2016 that any other Greek fencer would make the top 5/top 10 for many years. It's a shame that only one of them will be able to make it to Paris 2024 with this current qualification system. Though we did get 9th in the team event here which is a big improvement from the past.

What about Ukraine? They have good odds as well.

Aravane Rezai won Madrid in 2010

Here were my votes for those who were interested: 12 points 11 points 10 points 9 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point My reserves were (in order) , , and . None of these countries got points from Greece except for my top 4. I guess that's how it is on a multi-member jury. Also I'd like to thank @IoNuTzZfor giving us 9 points and @Memo for 3 points

I think it was his votes for the year of that thread? Not sure. I am surprised about this, Greeks usually like Spanish music/culture. Congratulations on the victory though! Clearly you did not need our votes

Thank you for the points @Illya Sending my love and support to your beautiful country during these difficult moments

Another incredible result for Despina Georgiadou in the World Cup in Tunisia. She beat world number one Brunet 15-9 in the semifinals! Unfortunately she just lost 15-13 in the final to Misaki Emura from Japan, who beat the other Greek girl Theodora Gkountoura 15-14 in the round of 16.

Giannis Bourousis (basketball) retired today. He is 38 yo and led his hometown club (Karditsa) to promotion to the first league for the first time ever (the final game was today so from next year they will make their debut and he will stay involved with the club), and he decided it was time to retire. He was on the Greek national team at Beijing 2008, and was also on the team that won gold at Eurobasket 2005 and bronze at Eurobasket 2009. Euroleague champion in 2015 with Real Madrid as well, and all-Euroleague First Team in 2009 (with Olympiacos) and 2016 (with Baskonia). Efthymia Kolokytha (athletics) also announced her retirement. She was a heptathlete who later switched to long jump. She is 34 yo but hasn't competed since last year. She participated at two European Championships and won a lot of medals at Balkan Championships and National Championships. She was often a member of the Greek team at the European Team Championships. I am sad to see that she is ending her career without an Olympic participation. She was so close in 2016 to qualifying for the long jump (the standard was 6.70 and she had 6.66 ).

In 18 participations we have never reached the top 10. We probably have the worst record of any nation I was really hoping that this time we would finally make the top 10. It was my second time choosing the song and last time I chose we got 12th (our equal best result). Anyways I'd like to thank everyone for giving us points so far and enjoying our song Thank you: @rybak 11 points @kungshamra71 10 points (clearly you have forgiven us for what happened at Euro 2004 ) @Finnator123 8 points @Fly_like_a_don 6 points @NikolaB 5 points @Federer91 2 points @justony 2 points

What do you mean by "non hockey country?" It is our national sport! I didn't vote for any of those 4 songs

77.19 and third place for Frantzeskakis in the men's hammer throw. I'm glad he got the chance to go to Nairobi. Greece was one of several countries which boycotted the 2017 World Youth Championships when he was the number one U18 hammer thrower in the world at that time, so it was a missed opportunity for him.

Third time ever that there is a Greek in the Champions League final (1971 and 2004 were the other times). Ironically in 2004 our guy (Akis Zikos of Monaco) played the full 90 minutes but was not called up to the national team for Euro 2004. We actually had a lot of good players on that team which people from other countries are not aware of, it was our golden generation that underachieved for a long time and then when they finally did something they won the whole tournament

@Vektor Budapest is a very beautiful city, I went in 2015 (thanks to cheap Wizz Air flights from Thessaloniki ) and spent 4 days there. I loved it! I will have to go back someday to explore other parts of your country as well

Nice to see Tselidis win bronze here in the Men's -90kg. He won bronze in 2018 and then struggled with injuries so he missed Tokyo, but now he is looking good for Paris

3.75 και τώρα 3.80!! 6.27 στο μήκος! Φλωρου-Δημητριαδου: 4.05 PB Η Τζενγκο είχε βολή στα 62.09, 3η καλύτερη βολή της καριέρας της. O Κορακιδης εκανε 65.73 με την ανδρική σφύρα (είχε 60.56 από πέρυσι). Ο αδερφός του είχε 69.45 από πέρυσι και τώρα είχε βολή στα 70.51. 71.18 η Σκαρβελη (έχει ατομικό 71.33) 4:18.31 η Σπύρου (1500) και 2:06.79 στα 800μ, επισης ατομικό ρεκόρ (είχε 2:09.94 από πέρυσι) 71.95 ο Ζαλτος (νέο ατομικό ρεκόρ) 5.85

I wonder if Slovakia would ever come back if the Czechs win in the near future?

Karlaftis is from Greece actually. He is from Athens and moved to the US as a teenager following his father's death. Then he joined the American football team at his high school and started playing. Back in Greece he played water polo and was apparently on our junior national team according to Wikipedia (and his generation later won the U20 World Championships in 2019...) Would be pretty cool if he can have a successful career and make the sport popular in Greece.

So Alcaraz can be coached for the whole match just like Nadal was, and Alcaraz takes an 8 minute bathroom break after losing the second set from *4-1 up. Of course no one cares, but when Tsitsipas does it then everyone attacks him. How nice it must be for those to be from the influential nations...just look at Raducanu, she has barely won matches all year and is treated like a queen, no one ever says anything about her taking MTOs in every single match. Let alone all the WCs they get. It's a joke.

I guess I will be extremely optimistic and say 125 athletes and 10 medals I'm curious about athletics and rowing, we have a lot of young athletes doing well in their age categories in recent years, I wonder by 2024 how many medals we can win at the Olympics, a lot will depend on how they do in the senior category the next two years. In Tokyo we won one medal in each (both were gold though). We'll have a few chances in swimming, a few chances in shooting, a few chances in tennis as well. Probably not too unrealistic to expect one medal in each of those. Then we also have water polo, gymnastics, sailing, wrestling, taekwondo, basketball, judo, boxing, fencing etc. Some of these sports we have good chances for 1 or 2 medals, some of sports we have small chances.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate today. In Greece, we are Orthodox mostly and our Easter is next week (same with most Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Romanians etc)

London 2012 bronze medalist in rowing Christina Giazitzidou won the Greek National Championships today in Mountain Road Race (sorry I don't know the proper term in English but it's 20.5km). She retired from rowing at age 22 but now I guess she is a runner.

For me Lithuania is a masterpiece, I'm disappointed that others don't think the same, I think this song would be the winner if I were the only one voting

Πανελλήνιο Σχολικό Πρωτάθλημα: 2.12-Μιτα (U18EL) 19.52-Αντωνάτος 5.75-Κοϊκοπουλου

Tsimikas MOTM