Makedonas

Why not US Open?

Since the US Open she made 3 finals (Ostrava, St. Petersburg, Indian Wells) and another 3 SF (Moscow, WTA Finals, Doha), so it seems that she is slowly starting to improve from always losing in SF to sometimes making F. At this rate she will win titles in a few years

Evangelia Papazoglou (artistic swimming) She is 27 yo and represented Greece in Rio 2016 (duet) and Tokyo 2020 (duet and was supposed to compete in the team event as well but Greece had to withdraw due to multiple girls testing positive for COVID). We got a new national team coach and she wanted to remove Papazoglou from the duet temporarily, to test out some other girls and try something new and make Papazoglou "work more" for her spot. Papazoglou was not happy about that so she decided to focus on her studies instead from now on...

It starts tomorrow. Kontou (who is 16 yo) was not selected for this as I said and I see she was selected for next weekend's World Cup I in Belgrade. She is heavily rated but seems a bit young to be skipping the European U19s for a senior event where she probably won't do well against much older and stronger athletes...

Sad for Olympiacos to lose to that specific team on our genocide remembrance day of all days

Tsitsipas has a good draw! Tricky first round against Musetti but he avoided Djokovic/Nadal/Alcaraz/Zverev who are all on the other half of the draw. Big chance for him. Sakkari has a tough draw but this is WTA so it doesn't really matter because the women's draws always fall apart anyways Happy to see Valentini Grammatikopoulou follow up her US Open second round run from qualifying with another main draw. I hope she can do some damage in the main draw here as well although I know it is unlikely.

WTA too

10.72 στα 100μ (είχε ατομικό 10.82 από πέρυσι) 13.47 στα 100 εμπόδια. 2η καλύτερη επίδοση στη καριέρα της (έχει ατομικό 13.31 από το 2020) Ριζος: 5.50 PB στον ανοιχτό! Αναστασάκης: 77.30 Ατομικό ρεκόρ από την Δεληγιαννη και στα 800μ! Είχε 2:04.11 από πέρυσι, χθες έκανε 2:03.48. Αλλά στιγμιότυπα: Μήκος ανδρών: Τεντογλου 8.36 WL Δισκοβολία ανδρών: Μπουζακης (19χρονος) 56.25 PB (είχε 51.35 από πέρυσι) Σφαιροβολία ανδρών: Λατιφλλαρι 19.93 PB (είχε 19.78 από πέρυσι), 6ος όλων των εποχών στην Ελλάδα Μουζενίδης 19.92 =PB Οικονόμου (19χρονος) 17.86 PB (είχε 15.41 από πέρυσι αλλά και 16.99 φετος στον κλειστό) Δισκοβολία γυναικών: Αναγνωστοπουλου 60.59, 4η καλύτερη επίδοση στην καριέρα της και καλύτερη βολή απο το 2017

Greece got 12 televoting points from Norway in the semifinal, but in the final only 7. Ukraine and Lithuania (countries from the same semifinal as Greece) got more televoting points than us in the final from Norway. Always interesting to see these things.

Sorry for my late replies, I am just catching up now. I think if Ukraine can't host then Great Britain should as runners-up. Although I feel that a lot of Ukraine's points would've gone to Spain and have pushed them into first place had the war not happened. I like Stefania although I think it probably would've been top 5-8 or so in a regular year and not the winner. It's crazy that they were 2nd in the Ukrainian national final but 1st in Europe I'm happy Spain did so well for the first time in forever. They have potential to be a Eurovision powerhouse so perhaps this is the start of a strong era for them. If they continue to send good songs which we know they are capable of, they will regularly be on the left side of the scoreboard. Also I'm glad that Greece gave Lithuania 5 televoting points in the semifinal. Nice to know my efforts were rewarded and my 20 votes weren't wasted Lastly the juries are a joke. These "music professionals" are mostly a bunch of nobodies, at least for Greece I can say that. Every year I see the names of the jury members and it's rare that I've heard of more than 1 of the 5. All of them rating Azerbaijan 1st except one (the only person I've actually heard of) rated them 2nd. I mean come on... Perhaps only previous contestants can be jury members, maybe that would make it more credible? The current system is broken.

$$$$ Kind of crazy that the juries helped this horrible Swiss song make the final, meanwhile the juries screwed Switzerland in 2013 and 2017 and kept them out of the final with much better songs. Azerbaijan and Australia are two countries that always benefit massively from the juries. Year after year... I'm surprised Albania gave us 12 in the tele vote. I didn't expect the Greek minority in Albania to be so effective especially since Amanda isn't a household name for Greeks. The Albanian public only gave us 3 points in 2017 and 2 in 2019, but now last year we got 8 (we would've gotten 10 had Switzerland's singer not been of Albanian origin) and this year 12 points. Reminds me of the old days when they would always give us 10 or 12. The last time they gave us 12 was in 2012. Between 2008 and 2013, Albania gave Greece 10 or 12 each time. The same goes for the Albanian immigrants in Greece. They got 12 from our tele vote in the semifinals this year. Ukraine got 10 from us in the semi finals but 12 in the final (as Albania did not qualify). I've also noticed that diaspora voting tends to be more effective in semi finals, I guess because less people watch/vote, so I wonder if Albania would've gotten 12 from us in the final or if it still would've gone to Ukraine. I don't think "Be My Guest" in 2012 was fighting for 1st place Wild Dances > Stefania > 1944 Croatia got ROBBED in 2021.

We only sent two women here, and I've never heard of either one of them before (not sure why some of our 'regular' team members didn't go), but both are in the quarterfinals so far

The European U19 Championships will take place next weekend in Italy. Entries by country: https://worldrowing.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2022-ERU19CH-Entry-by-Country.pdf Obviously no Russia or Belarus. Germany and Great Britain sending very small teams which is surprising. Also no Ireland, Spain or the Netherlands... Some new faces in the Greek team including three 15 yo boys and one 14 yo girl I'm surprised our new young talent Dimitra-Eleni Kontou didn't get selected, it looks like she is only going to be competing in women's and U23 regattas this year which is a shame because I'd like to see her win something in her own age group first. Also I'd be surprised if we didn't win medals in at least three of our four women's boats. Disappointing that we didn't send a women's four as we have medaled in that event the last two years, and we still have two girls from last year's boat that are eligible for this category again but didn't get selected...

I already know everyone will boo if Cyprus give us the 12 in the jury (we already know it's happening in tele vote) but I'd like to remind people that most people in Cyprus are Greek and we have the same media and music industry, so obviously Amanda got so much media attention there the last few months. Also we can't give Cyprus 12 this year obviously as they didn't qualify, but the singer they sent is actually from Greece and is well known in Greece, which was also the case in 2021, 2019, 2018 and other years as well. If Ireland for example always sent Georgian singers who were famous in Georgia and Georgia gave them 12 points every year, no one would be surprised either

Am I the only one who thinks that these songs are very boring so far? I have to leave in a couple hours also, so I'll miss the voting which is of course the best part Also it's interesting that Greece did better than Cyprus for the second consecutive year, when Cyprus both times sent someone from Greece who is actually famous and Greece both times sent people from the diaspora that no one knew in Greece (also in 2019 both countries did the same thing but Cyprus did better)

Tentoglou 8.36 =WL

Sorry for the late reply. Albania was quite hyped at least before the rehearsals, so that's why I thought they'd make it. And yeah Austria's studio version was easily top 10 but the live was messy which is why I wasn't surprised it didn't qualify. Sweden hosted twice in the last decade, I'd rather them give it to someone else personally. Greek player scored the winning penalty, maybe that's a good sign for Greece in Eurovision?

Who knew that when Barty retired, someone would step up and be even more dominant

I wasn't able to watch tonight but I am glad that we qualified, even though it was expected. Hope we can get our second consecutive top 10 finish on Saturday, and maybe do even better than last year I'm surprised Albania didn't make it. Disappointed Austria and Croatia missed out although not surprised. Totally shocked that Switzerland made it. Crazy that some years they had good songs and got robbed (2013, 2017, 2018) and then this year with this boring song they make it

200μ γυναικών: 23.52 η Αναστασίου (είχε 23.75 από πέρυσι) Καλές επιδόσεις από άλλα κορίτσια: 400μ γυναικών: 54.65 η Μουρτα στον πρώτο της αγώνα μετά το 2019 5000μ γυναικών: 16:49.32 η Παναγιωτοπουλου (είχε 17:15.84 από πέρυσι) 100 εμπόδια γυναικών: 13.79 η Αουντη (είχε 14.13 από το 2019) Μήκος γυναικών: 5.79 η 16χρονη Μοζα (είχε 5.74 από πέρυσι) Επι κοντώ γυναικών: 3.65 η Μπουμπουλιδη (γεννημένη το 2008, είχε 3.45 από πέρυσι) Σφαιροβολία γυναικών: 14.59 η 19χρονη Σουγλάκου (είχε ατομικό 14.16 από πέρυσι) 14.48 η 18χρονη Ανδρεαδη (είχε 14.05 από πέρυσι) Σφυροβολία γυναικών: 58.05 η 18χρονη Γωγουλη (είχε 54.90 από το 2020)

3.70 19.93 και είναι 3ος στον κόσμο φέτος στην κατηγορία Κ18 (είναι μόλις 15)

Greece went up from 39 to 25 in the team rankings (women's sabre). I think we could make the top 10/12 or at least top 15 within the next year based on our recent results (13th and 9th). We were very close to beating Poland. Actually our third fencer (Mpenou) did far better than expected. Georgiadou and Gkountoura lost us some points.

My personal votes: 12 pts- 10 pts- 8 pts- 7 pts- 6 pts- 5 pts- 4 pts- 3 pts- 2 pts- 1 pt-

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.