Makedonas

I guess I should follow the NCAAs due to the large participation of Greek national team members Ohio State (Kyridou sisters), Washington (Tsamopoulou), Yale (Bourmpou) and Texas (Christodoulidis) seem to be among the best teams. Michigan State (Agioti), Oklahoma (Pergouli) and Tulsa (Mitsi and Lamprianidou) also have Greeks. I know that Christodoulidis was in the boat with Texas that won last year. Tsamopoulou won it a previous year with Washington (Asoumanaki who finished 4th in Rio W2X was also on that team but she graduated). Strangely there aren't many Greek men in NCAA, mostly just women.

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned it, rowing will start after the Opening Ceremony. In Tokyo, it started before it (single sculls heats).

It's too bad Nigeria didn't qualify, I wonder if they would've been in the same group with Argentina for the 27838873784th time

Maria Prevolaraki is into the final in 53kg This will be her 6th European medal (she already has 3 silver and 2 bronze). She also has 2 bronze from World Championships. It would be really nice for her to finally win a gold medal and this will be a great chance for her without any Russians. She has golds from the 2020 World Cup (which was basically the World Championships for that year), and twice from the Mediterranean Games but I think this would be her most important medal. Also quite sad that she has been to the Olympics three times already and her best result was 10th place. I really hope she can change that in Paris because she said it will be her last Olympics. She is still only 30 but it feels like she's been around forever, probably because she has been our only female wrestler really in the last 15 years. I worry that women's wrestling in Greece will be completely dead after 2024, although maybe the success of our young guys can inspire something.

I'm sorry, but it is kind of annoying to see so many people here winning medals for countries that they are not from Thank you for all of this. Your knowledge of some of these sports is really incredible I believe Pilidis said it on the show and then when he left the show and went back to "normal life," people wanted answers including the Greek and European Wrestling Federations, and from what I remember (like I said I haven't completely followed the story and don't know all of the facts) he either tried to pretend he didn't say it or wouldn't give clear answers. It was a big story in Greece a couple months ago, and he recently gave an interview saying that his relationship with the federation was very bad both before and after his appearances on Survivor. That they used to make the youth wrestlers pay from their families money in order to be in the national team and travel abroad for competitions, and that they didn't want to bring his coach to Tokyo or that they didn't want to pay for that or something. Pilidis said his goal was to win a medal in Paris, so of course he will say that. No one says after already going to the Olympics once at 21 yo that "my goal is to finish top 8 at the next Olympics" or something . Normally we wouldn't invest in him although I think he will receive a lot of sponsors. Unfortunately it is not because of his wrestling achievements and gold medals in youth categories. The only reason he will receive sponsors is because he became known to the Greek public through competing on Survivor and the viewers of the show loved him, and everyone knows that the reason he went to the show was for money to support his wrestling career even if it meant sacrificing his 2022 season.

Σειρά έχει ο Ολυμπιακός (LEN Euro League, όπως πέρυσι)

So Ioanna and Stefania are both back in Greece (the country where they were born and raised until age 17) and playing for Greek club teams again, but Stefania plays for the US national team (okay, she always wins gold medals so I can understand). Why not Ioanna though? She's never been called up to the US national team, she was a member of Greece's women's senior team from when she was a teenager and won gold at the World Youth Championships. There is no reason for her to not be playing for our national team anymore

https://sportsfeed.gr/protathlitis-eyropis-o-koygioymtsidis/ ΤΕΡΑΣΤΙΟΣ

Congratulations to my Polish friends here! @Monzanator @rafalgorka @rybak @Adriano I liked Poland in 2018 and was disappointed, hopefully this time you can do better Also I meant to say a few days ago, congratulations to my Canadian friends as well @NearPup @intoronto @JoshMartini007

I believe the official name under the Skopje 2014 project for that statue was "Warrior on a Horse" Former Greece manager Fernando Santos eliminates Greece's two main rival countries back-to-back to qualify for the World Cup

Big surprise, it has been all over the sports news in Greece since yesterday, basketball player Konstantinos Mitoglou of Armani Milano tested positive. https://basketnews.com/news-169083-dinos-mitoglou-tests-positive-in-anti-doping-control.html

They both lost in the first round...

The Greek Aquatics Federation requested that the swimming competition at the Mediterranean Games be pushed back a week in order to give swimmers the time to compete in both the World Championships and the Mediterranean Games. This request has now been granted, so the swimming will be from 1-5 July instead of 26-30 June (swimming at the World Championships will be from 18-25 June).

Thanks for this analysis, I really appreciate it. I honestly didn't even know who Khosonov won until he won silver last year at the World U23s. His name obviously isn't Greek so I'm curious about him. We aren't the type of country that likes to naturalize athletes either so he must live in Greece or have some connections. I was reading about Kougioumtsidis, apparently he his uncle was a former wrestler who competed in multiple World Championships for Greece. Also we are not sure what will happen with Pilidis, he said he wants to win a medal at the 2024 Olympics (he's been in the media a lot now ever since his appearance on Survivor), but he also has a very bad relationship with the federation (he said on the show that he was asked once to fix a European final and that caused controversy). He also said that his mother had to sell all of her jewelry to afford to send him to competitions. Honestly I haven't kept up with the story because there have been many interviews about this drama and I haven't read/listened to them yet. Incredible, only 21 years old and already European champion This is the first gold medal ever for Greece in men's freestyle wrestling at the European Championships, and our first men's wrestling medal at the European Championships since 2008! Maria Prevolaraki won 5 European medals since then, but of course that's women's wrestling. It's exciting to see Greece start doing well in sports like wrestling where we don't normally have much success. Kougioumtsidis also has a younger brother so hopefully he is good as well

They built so many statues in that country in recent years, they might not have any space for more

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!