Makedonas

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.

Yes. Also they played doubles together at the 2012 Olympics but lost in the first round to the Williams sisters. It seems that they are no longer friends however.

https://sportsfeed.gr/me-rosia-to-pagkosmio-ydatosfairisis/ According to this, Russian water polo teams WILL compete at this year's World Championships...

"Mixed team extreme shooting-Cross"

Gold for Kougioumtsidis at the European U23 Championships!

Team Greece MEN Konstantinos Douvalidis (60m Hurdles) Emmanouil Karalis (Pole Vault) Miltiadis Tentoglou (Long Jump) Nikolaos Andrikopoulos (Triple Jump) WOMEN Rafailia Spanoudaki (60m) Irini Vasiliou (400m) Elisavet Pesiridou (60m Hurdles) Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou, Paraskevi Papachristou, and Ekaterini Stefanidi all had the standard but aren't going to Belgrade

1. Cyprus once again selects a singer who is from Greece, and this time the song also has Greek lyrics and Greek sounds. The music video was also filmed in Greece (as is usually the case with Cyprus' Eurovision songs). Of course that's still not enough for the rest of Europe. They won't even look into the facts and will just boo as usual when we give Cyprus 12 points, without even knowing why they do it 2. For a second I thought the video was unavailable in my country 3. I haven't properly listened to our song yet because I've been too distracted by the music video. I'm happy they chose to show Symi. Greece is more than just Parthenon, Mykonos and Santorini and I'm happy that the production team decided to show something different (Which in my opinion is more beautiful than the overcrowded, famous places). Not really my cup of tea as far as the song goes, but people seem to think we will get a good result so I guess that is the most important part. In previous years I sometimes liked our songs but we didn't do well at the contest, so...

@Monzanator Sorry, for some reason I thought she had both but now I double checked and saw that she only has the indoor NR for Poland And I'm sure Belibasaki does have fond memories. She often posts about it on Instagram. It's too bad that she only really had one season as a 400m runner, but it's better than nothing. I remember watching her race with my uncle who died a few months later... It was a really important Championships for Greece at a time when our country was destroyed by fires. We won 6 medals in Berlin (three of them gold), which was by far the most we had won in many many years. And the Greek 1-2 in the women's pole vault was also very special and memorable However I think the biggest surprise was Tsiamis bronze in the men's triple jump, after many years of disappointments he finally won his first medal when we least expected it, at age 36! (He is retiring later this year so I'll post about him when the time comes )

Maria Belibasaki (athletics) apparently has been quietly retired for a few months (no official announcement but I heard about it from a reliable source). She represented Greece in London 2012 (100m and 200m) and Rio 2016 (200m). She competed at three World Championships (2013, 2015, 2017) and three European Championships (2014, 2016, 2018). 2018 was definitely the highlight of her career, where she switched to 400m and won silver at the European Championships in Berlin, while her home country was burning from the wildfires. She also broke the Greek NR (50.45) in Berlin, and led the race for about 390m or so until she got tired at the end and Swiety-Ersetic edged her out for the gold (that's the race where Justyna set the current Polish record of 50.41). She also competed at the World Indoors that year and made the final, but it was later announced that she was DQed for lane infringement. Prior to 2018, she always skipped the indoor season. Unfortunately she struggled a lot with injuries after 2018. It looked like she would be a big force and keep improving in 400m, and winning more medals, but she only ran in three meets in 2019 and one in 2021. I was really curious to see how high she could go and how she would compete against non-Europeans. Back then we were thinking maybe she could make an Olympic final in the 400m... She is still only 30 years old so I was hoping to see her in Paris 2024 (she posted something last year about missing Tokyo because of injuries but that she wouldn't give up, but I guess she changed her mind). It's quite sad because 2018 seemed to be the beginning of the best years of her career, but instead it was the end of her career.

https://sportsfeed.gr/me-to-symvolo-tis-eisvolis-agonistike-rosos-sto-pagkosmio-kypello-gymnastikis/ According to this, Russian Ivan Kuliak competed at the World Cup in Doha with the symbol of the invasion ("Z") on his outfit.

Three medals in three events for Anna Korakaki It would be so nice to see her in the mixed event in Paris with her younger brother (they won bronze together here)

Now she is in the final of WTA Lyon!

Αδαμοπούλου: 4.37 =PB Φλωρου-Δημητριαδου: 4.00 PB Ριζος: 5.45 PB (είχε 5.35 στον ανοιχτό και 5.31 στον κλειστό) Στο μήκος γυναικών, η Βασιλική Χαϊτιδου πήρε το χρυσό μετάλλιο στο Βαλκανικό Πρωτάθλημα με άλμα στα 6.25μ, που αποτελεί απόλυτο ατομικό ρεκόρ (είχε 6.24 στον ανοιχτό και 6.06 στον κλειστό). Χειμερινό Κύπελλο Ρίψεων: Η Τζενγκο άνοιξε τη σεζόν με μια καλή βολή (61.37). Στο αντίστοιχο αγώνισμα των ανδρών, ο Τσιτσος έκανε 77.44 (3η καλύτερη επίδοση της καριέρας του, έχει ατομικό 78.22). Στη σφυροβολία ανδρών, ο Φραντζεσκακης ήταν ο νικητής με 77.89 (U23NR). Το ατομικό του ήταν 76.85 από πέρυσι. Ο Αναστασάκης έριξε 77.11μ (2η καλύτερη επίδοση της καριέρας του, έχει ατομικό ρεκόρ στα 77.72 από το 2017). Στη σφυροβολία ανδρών Κ20, ο Κορακιδης έκανε 77.52 U20WL (με 6κ σφύρα). Το ατομικό του ήταν 71.09 από πέρυσι.

Balkan Indoor Championships commentator was calling Slovenian athletes "Slovakians" @hckošice

Silver for our girls! https://www.instagram.com/p/CasCx9pFBZZ/ Christina Papadopoulou speaks English so well . I know she lived in Australia for a few years but she speaks with almost an Australian accent. Well, she didn't make our Tokyo 2020 team because she was 4th for Greece and we could only send three girls, but we are lucky that Australia also qualified three so they didn't need to try and 'steal 'her from us or anything Now we need a second male race walker who is good enough, this way we can qualify the mixed 35km team for Paris, so we'll be able to send the maximum amount of 5 female race walkers to the Olympics. Drisbioti said she wants to go to Paris, and she'll be 40 then. Tsinopoulou will be 33 and said she also wants to go to Los Angeles at age 37. Filtisakou, Papadopoulou, Fiaska, Kourkoutsaki, Antonopoulou, Alikanioti, Bochori, Seferiadi etc. are all much younger.

Well it seems that with many withdrawals, plus with Russia and Belarus not sending athletes, Polak probably will make it in the end.

Best of luck to him! Similar to Greece where a lot of our athletes compete on Survivor in recent years. Our sprinter Katerina Dalaka actually won the show a couple years ago. Actually, she competed on the show for two seasons so she basically gave up any chance she had on qualifying for Tokyo to make money and attract sponsors. She is our most followed female athlete besides Sakkari. She has never qualified for the Olympics (I think she has a chance for 4x100 in Paris), and has more followers than our Olympic gold medal winners (Korakaki and Stefanidi). https://www.instagram.com/katerina_dalaka/ https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/greece/katerina-dalaka-14376933 Now this steeplechase runner is the newest contestant: https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/greece/stavroula-chrisaidi-14535408 On the show they introduced her as a "bronze European champion" which I guess is how they tried to exaggerate her bronze at the Balkan Youth Championships in 2013 A Greek wrestler (who competed in Tokyo and won gold at the World U23 Championships last year) also competed this season, and so did a female rower who has won medals at the World U23 and European U23 Championships a few years ago. It worked for Dalaka I guess (although her results regressed while she wasn't training properly), and now this trend seems to have been happening not only in Greece but also in Brazil. Also we had a taekwondo athlete compete in Greece's Next Top Model a few years ago. Then she returned to the national team afterwards. https://www.instagram.com/jo_desylla/

I know this is off-topic, but when does Ieva's ban end?

It was announced today that World Sailing is officially allowing her to change nationalities. The Hellenic Olympic Committee was trying to block/delay this. There was previously a rumour that she would not be allowed to switch until after Paris 2024, and that she would have to skip the next Olympics but that no longer seems to be true. However there is also a rumour that she might compete for Cote d'Ivoire instead of Portugal I think the Hellenic Sailing Federation is really shameful. This is the second time this has happened in recent history, as Kyranakou (aka Zegers) became Dutch and she competed for them in Rio and Tokyo. Obviously the sailing federation is not okay because this doesn't happen really with our other federations (except for people who weren't good enough for Greece anyways, or in team sports went to countries where they had one parent from so they could have a better chance at winning medals). However, I don't like the way Karachaliou handled this either. She acts so innocent and like a true victim but I don't really buy it. She had some difficulties since 2017 with the federation so they definitely should have taken steps sooner to address this, but there was a lot of shock/outrage from the Hellenic Olympic Committee when she announced a few months ago that she is done with Greece. They wanted to solve the problems with her but she refused. Prior to that (shortly after the Tokyo Olympics), she was offered some money from them which she declined because she already made up her mind (the Hellenic Olympic Committee was unaware of her intentions to stop representing Greece). She also had a Greek sponsor (possibly more than one, but definitely at least one that I know of) who supported her a lot until Tokyo and they are very unhappy with her now. Of course there are two sides to every story, but it seems a little stubborn from her to not accept help from people who wanted to support her. She can say that "Greece kicked her out," and that might be partially true, but in the end she could have stayed but basically told everyone "it's too late" and just left instead of trying to sort her issues out. Other athletes have come out and said that the Hellenic Olympic Committee was always good to them, and Karachaliou even admitted that she received money and her reasons for leaving Greece aren't only economical... As I said, she definitely had her reasons and her problems with the sailing federation, but at the end many people tried to help her and solve her issues with the federation, but she didn't care. I know she must've been frustrated after years of this, but it's very disappointing that she wouldn't give Greece another chance, especially after this news became viral and more people started paying attention. That was the perfect opportunity for positive change but instead she decided to walk away from her country. I'm sure her sponsorship situation also wasn't ideal, but the Hellenic Olympic Committee got her a sponsor and she kind of turned her back on the people that supported her these years. A lot of Greeks will still cheer for her when she switches to her new country. Personally, I will not be. I'm sorry if that sounds mean, but when you have problems with people and the other people want to fix them and you don't want to fix them, it says a lot about your character.