Makedonas

Yeah it's great, with Pilidis, Kougioumtsidis and Khosonov, Greek wrestling could have a nice future

Anna Korakaki had to withdraw because she tested positive for Covid

In 2018 Greece only lost two games out of 12 total (including group stage and playoffs). We lost one to Belgium (draw the other time we played them) and one to Croatia (draw the other time we played them). As a result, we did not qualify. Mind you we had just made the World Cup in 2010 and 2014 before then. Then we only had 2 losses and they were to the second and third placed teams at the Finals. I'm not saying we deserved to qualify or anything, but that is an incredibly difficult path especially for a team that made the two previous World Cup Finals... Only 3 will be European though, right? I know you didn't mean it, but honestly this is a bit much. It's easy for people who are not affected to say "Greeks are too sensitive" but when a neighbouring country usurps history to make territorial claims on my homeland, with maps of parts of our country annexed to their country in public school classrooms, and printing currency with photos of Thessaloniki on it, then yes, I'm going to be annoyed...

Pilidis is not going to the European Championships. I guess he is still not ready after taking off time to compete on Survivor and picking up an injury there as well.

Obviously her surname is Albanian but her first name is Greek. Do you know anything about her origins?

Obviously not anywhere near as impressive as some others but 17 year old Dimitra Pavlou (WTA 1278) beat Elena-Teodora Cadar (WTA 621, former 346) 7-5 1-6 6-2 in the first round of ITF Sharm El Sheikh. Cadar won the tournament there last week and this is the highest opponent Pavlou has ever beaten. Pavlou is Maria Sakkari's first cousin, so if she can rise up the rankings the next few years I think her cousin will "help" her with wildcards and playing doubles together etc. She already started sharing a fitness trainer with Maria, so it would be cool if she could keep improving over the next ~10 years just like her cousin did.

For some reason I think we have not seen the last of Barty, she already retired once before, I think she might make a comeback for Brisbane 2032 even if just for doubles or something.

Just when you think women's tennis couldn't get any more unpredictable, world number one Barty retires out of the blue

@rybak We have been discussing which song to pick for Greece, and @Ted has been involved in the process so I think he is going to join. Also I hope we will have our song on Friday 25/3, which is Greece's Independence Day

Disappointing loss but Iga was expected to win anyways. Congratulations to our Polish friends Both girls now enter the top 3!

With Tentoglou's gold medal, Greece has won at least one medal in athletics at every Olympics/World Champs/European Champs since the 2013 World Championships Very nice because we rarely won anything after Athens 2004 until then, with a few exceptions here and there.

Congratulations my friend @Belle

Thank you, happy to join our lovely neighbours Yes, but also it seems to be a habit for Maria. She was 0-5 in ITF finals until she finally won one. Then she was 0-7 in Grand Slam third round matches until she finally won one. Then she had a very poor record in semifinals but now she won two of her last three. So hopefully she can slowly start to break all of these trends as she has done before She was 0-4 in WTA 1000 semifinals, but Wuhan 2017 and Rome 2019 she came from the qualifying, it was a big surprise just to make the semifinals, no one expected her to win those. Then Miami 2021 she was an underdog and lost 7-6 in the third, and then Doha 2022 lost to Swiatek. So this match against Badosa was definitely her best chance to finally make a big final (of course last year she also lost in the semifinals of two majors and also WTA Finals). As for Stefanos, he did win the ATP Finals and a Masters 1000 title already, though I agree he could do better in the later stages of tournaments. He has made 5 GS semifinals but only one final for example, although he always lost to good players (Medvedev 2x, Nadal, Djokovic) so at least he isn't wasting easy draws.

Georgiadou has improved so much Now she's in the top 10 and Greek no. 1, as Gkountoura is ranked 11

Benfica vs. Liverpool means that a team with a Greek player is guaranteed to make the semifinals

ΤΕΝΤΟΓΛΟΥ ΣΑΚΚΑΡΗ

Disappointing women's pole vault final. I like Morris and am happy for her, but it really was a wasted opportunity for our girls. Stefanidi has gold everywhere EXCEPT World Indoors. Kyriakopoulou has medals everywhere EXCEPT Olympics (unrealistic) and World Indoors. This could've been a chance for them if they didn't skip the indoor season. Also Polak maybe could've won a medal if she had her 2020/2021 indoor form.

Yes, I watched the full match. So proud of Maria. It will be a tough one against Iga, it's the fifth time they've played each other in the last 10 months. Winner will be ranked number 2, loser will be ranked number 3. Either way, both girls will reach new career-high rankings Also not many countries can say that they've had men and women reach the top 3, now Greece can join that exclusive list. Who would've ever thought this 5-6 years ago even?!

My thoughts exactly. Where is our friend @OlympicsFan nowadays? Will he finally accept the truth, or still complain about Tentoglou and discredit his victory like he did when he won gold at the Olympics?

TENTOGLOU So nice for him to win gold with a big WL and NR and on his 24th birthday! They had a bus of 50 people from Grevena (his hometown) travel to Belgrade. So nice that his family and friends got to be there for this moment. 8.55 is very impressive, he had the previous NR of 8.38 so this shatters that. Also he had another jump at 8.51 plus the first one which was 8.52 but they called it a foul even though it seems that it wasn't (they showed his mother in the stands complaining about it ). 6th on the all-time list also, and best in the world in 13 years (indoors) So now the only gold he is missing is World Outdoors, maybe this year in Eugene he can get it Basically the championships are over for Greece now. 4 of our 6 athletes already competed today. We won't do anything special after this. A shame that Karalis, Papachristou, Stefanidi and Kyriakopoulou all withdrew. Stefanidi only has the World Indoor title missing from her CV, so it really would've been a good chance for her. Especially since this year is kind of weak compared with others, but oh well.

There's a list on that link that says the countries (in small font) where it will be geoblocked, and Bulgaria is not listed, so Bulgaria should be good for YT.

He is out due to injury, so Greece will not have any pole vaulter (male or female) at the World Indoor Championships for the first time since 2006 We had 3 make the standard this year but none are going. Will be weird to have no Greeks or Poles in the pole vault events for the first time after many years...

What's the story? Why do they dislike each other?

I was also surprised. However, according to this article, FINA released the lists of teams taking part in the water polo tournament to the participating federations, and Russia was included in that. Of course there is still time to change it, or it could be an error. FINA are not known for being competent...

Some times the boos are fair (like Greece giving 12 to Cyprus in 2010, no one in Greece would've voted for that song if it were from say Estonia or something, the song was in English and not popular in Greece and the band was unknown), but this time the singer is from Greek, the lyrics are partially Greek, the song has Greek sounds, filmed in Greece. Greece and Cyprus have the same music industry, so a lot of the singers representing one country are already famous in the other. For example Tamta, Demy, Eleni Foureira are all popular in both countries for many years before they did Eurovision. In recent years Cyprus' Eurovision singers have always been from Greece and not from Cyprus, at least for the last four years. In the past Greece also sent several artists from Cyprus (Anna Vissi in 1980 and 2006, Loukas Yiorkas in 2011, Eleftheria Eleftheriou in 2012, Maria-Elena Kyriakou in 2015, and probably some others I am forgetting). And of course the history/politics play a role as most people from Cyprus are Greek-Cypriots. It's a complicated history which I won't go into detail about.