Makedonas

So in the end just two medals for us, but our first gold since 2018 (we won 3 medals in both 2019 and 2020 but no gold). Fragkou/Natsioula won gold easily in the women's double, as expected I guess. They won bronze last year here, and I think both will have good chances to make it to Paris (whether in the same boat or not). Fragkou had an incredible 2021. Bronze at the World U23s with Arabatzi in the double, bronze at the World juniors in the single, gold at the European U23s with Anastasiadou and now gold at the European juniors with Natsioula. Now she is done with the junior category and I expect that next year she will also make her debut in the senior category in addition to competing at the U23 level, and that Natsioula will win medals at both the junior and U23 categories (though the World U23s and World juniors will be held simultaneously so she can only compete in one of those I guess). And bronze for us in the women’s four. We won silver last year with two of the same rowers, and I was hoping for a repeat since we finished second in the preliminary race, but we caught a crab which was costly. Still, great to see Greek women win another medal in a four-person boat. We had won a lot of medals and one and two-person boats over the last 15 years or so (and men’s medals in four-person boats), but nothing since 2007 in a four-person boat until 2019 and now this is the third consecutive year that we did it. Two of our four girls will be eligible to compete as juniors again next year, so hopefully we can continue this streak. And even though there were only four boats in the race, Romania and Italy both won medals at the World juniors this year so it was quite a high level. Also nice to see Lemonia Makrygianni win bronze after her brother won bronze in the men’s double last year at this regatta. 5th place for Eleni Leventelli in the women’s single. I thought she would either win bronze or finish 4th but I didn’t expect the Latvian to win a medal. Still a decent performance for her, she is the only one from the A Final who will still be a junior next year so she can win a medal then. Also 5th for Iasonas Exarchou in the men’s single and for our men’s double. A bit disappointing that neither of these boats could win medals, I was thinking at least one could, and also they are all in their last year as juniors so it’s not like Leventelli’s case where next year she’ll have a great chance to reach the podium. Aside from Ntouskos’ historic gold in Rio, it really wasn’t a good year for our male rowers. Our two golds at the World U23s were from rowers in their last year at the U23 level, and we only won one silver at the European U23s from a men’s crew and that was the men’s double where one of the rowers was in his last year as a U23. Hopefully next year will be better for our men but it’s concerning. Disappointed that our men’s pair and men’s four finished 4th in their semifinals, especially the pair as they were super close to making the final, but these were the boats with the smallest chances to win medals for us anyways.

I don't know. I figured Australia and China would skip but thought at least one of USA/Canada would show up

Surprisingly easy 12-6 win for us over Italy. It seems that the good non-European teams all aren't here.

Great first day for Greece. All 7 of our crews advanced. Last year we won three medals (JM2X, JW2X, JW4-) and it looks like we will hopefully win medals in those three events once again, based on today's results at least. I also like our chances in JM1X and maybe JM2-. I'm surprised we didn't send a crew for JW2- as I think we could've won a medal there as well with two of the other 2004 girls Argyraki/Asvesta/Gkogkou.

GEORGIA 0-2 GREECE

Typical WTA...

I'm in for Greece!

No just like last month's U23 Euros, and also no either. Greece with 16 athletes, 7 boats. Some surprises with athletes who made A Finals at the World Juniors this year not being selected. Interesting to see 17 yo Eleni Leventelli finally competing in her age group, after competing at the U23 level two years in a row. She will be in the women's single sculls, after winning bronze in the women's lightweight single sculls at the European U23s last month (just over one second away from gold). I think she'll make the A Final and hopefully she can sneak a bronze but it will be tricky. The Swiss girl has been on fire this year. Leventelli will have another chance next year also. Fragkou/Natsioula won bronze last year here and honestly they should be the favourites for gold in the women's double. Fragkou won three medals in three regattas this year, all with different crews, so this should be her fourth medal of the year. Our women's four only has two of the same girls from last year's silver medal team. Not sure what to expect because with three of the same girls from last year they only got 6th at this year's World Juniors. Still, there are only five crews here in this event so a good chance to win a medal regardless No idea what to expect in the men's pair as we are sending new faces, and Iasonas Exarchou in the men's single sculls probably has a chance to win a medal (he was 9th at the World Juniors but silver at the European U23s in the men's double). Our men's four got 5th at the World Juniors and we have the same team here and with the gold medalists not competing we have a decent chance at bronze or something (we were only 0.09 seconds behind 4th place there). I also think we can have a chance in the men's double but there is so much depth in that event with 17 boats, it will be tough and hard to predict with inexperienced rowers. Generally the men's events are tougher to predict (at least from a Greek POV) because we have more new rowers, whereas most of the women already competed in several big regattas so we know their potential.

I am against racism of course, but they are still doing this? For how long?

http://sportsfeed.gr/3οι-ΣΤΟΝ-ΚΟΣΜΟ-Κατζουράκη-Φραντζεσκάκ/

Yes, but back then especially it was a huge surprise.

They remind me of APOEL in the 2011-12 Champions League. Also with a Greek keeper who was not on the national team, just like APOEL

Also they have the Greek Kolovos who is also kind of considered a failed player even for our standards

Murray said she would be number one in the world

I am silent but unfortunately some Greeks are celebrating today, Maria has many haters in Greece now due to being the girlfriend of the Prime Minister's son. Honestly it is really unfair for her, she is a good girl and never made any political statements yet she is under constant attack. During the Olympics even they were complaining about everything with her. She is top 10 now and people are still saying she isn't good and is a "loser." Sometimes it is embarrassing having people like this in our country. No matter what they always complain...

^Stosur losing a match in Australia? How shocking!

Was it then or 2013/14? I remember her being in the top 100 around that time period

@Monzanator Yes, I am just happy she made it to her third WTA final, hopefully she wins her second title. She lost many semifinals since winning Rabat 2019. From memory she lost in the semifinals of Rome 2019, San Jose 2019, Saint Petersburg 2020, Ostrava 2020, Abu Dhabi 2021, Melbourne 2021, Miami 2021, Roland Garros 2021 and US Open 2021. I might be forgetting one or two more. So yeah it seemed like she always lost semifinals so I am happy she finally won one. Sorry for Iga but she will also move to a new career-high. I always loved tennis but never imagined to have a Greek player in the top 10 for both ATP and WTA at the same time. It seemed like a wild dream. Some years ago I hoped for players in the top 100 of both and even that seemed unrealistic. Good things happen to those who wait I guess

Maria is number 5 in the WTA race...in late September! Honestly she deserves the top 10 and more. She did great this year. Semifinals at two Grand Slams, also semifinals at the big tournament in Miami, now final in Ostrava, also she made the semifinals of two other 500 tournaments (Abu Dhabi and Melbourne). In total she has 7 wins against top 10 players this year! I could be wrong (I only did quick research) but I think is the most of any player, tied with Barty. I don't think anyone else has more than 4 (Krejcikova).

Thank you Of course I will probably be totally off and we will have something like 70 athletes in Paris

Sakkari now guaranteed to go up to at least number 11 on Monday. Soon I think Greece and Spain will be the only countries to have players in both the men's and women's top 10!

I hope to see with 100+ athletes again and I think it is very possible but we'll see. Water polo we will certainly qualify our men's team. Between men's basketball, women's water polo and women's basketball (we have many good young players so I'm not sure if 2024 will be too early or 2028 more realistic but you never know), I think we can get another 1-3 teams although men's basketball and women's water polo are always one game away and then choke. Same thing happened this year. I don't think we'll qualify a full team in artistic swimming again (which is so sad because our girls didn't get to compete in Tokyo because half of the team got covid) but we will definitely qualify a duet. Many sports like cycling, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, fencing, wrestling we will probably qualify 1-3 athletes in each sport like usual. Weightlifting and archery we are hoping for 1 in each just as in Tokyo. Tennis we had 2 in Tokyo, hoping for another 1-2 in Paris but we will see. Petros Tsitsipas is close to top 200 in doubles and Valentini Grammatikopoulou is getting close to top 100 in doubles so maybe they can join our other two players. Grammatikopoulou/Sakkari would've made it this year if they stayed on the alternates list until the last minute. They had a higher combined ranking than Brazil and Chinese Taipei 2 but then again so did dozens of other potential teams from other countries that also weren't on the list. Some sports we haven't been in the Olympics since 2012 (beach volleyball, canoeing, diving) or 2008 (boxing). Of those I think we have the best chances in boxing and diving, hopefully to get about 1-2 in each of those sports. Sailing we had 8 in Tokyo and that's usually about what we have so I think it will be the same in Paris, somewhere between 6 and 11 sailors or so for us. Swimming we had 17 in Beijing, 14 in each of London and Rio, and 12 in Tokyo so we keep going down but I think we can go up again to about 15-18 in Paris. The problem is women's swimming has gone downhill. That is where we see decreases. We had 7 in Beijing, 6 in London, 4 in Rio and 2 in Tokyo. I don't think it is possible to keep going down, the only way is up so I am hopeful some of our young girl swimmers will do better. Shooting we usually have 2-3 shooters (at least the last few Games that's how it was) but the sport has grown a little and we have some young athletes that came close to qualifying for Tokyo, so I think in shooting we should aim for 4-5 quotas for Paris and based on results it seems realistic. Gymnastics we only had 1 athlete in Tokyo after having 9 in each of Beijing, London, Rio. A lot of this is because we didn't qualify in the rhythmic group as we usually do, and no other individuals qualified in artistic or rhythmic even though some were expected to. I think 3-4 is realistic for Paris. Rowing we also went down with only 4 athletes, we had 10 in each London and Beijing. But the ages of our rowers in Tokyo were 20, 20, 22, and 24 so we have a very young team and I expect more in Paris. We had 20 in athletics which was the lowest we had in a while, but most expressed desire to continue to 2024 except for two who will retire in 2022, but both of those athletes only qualified after withdrawals anyways (Tsiamis and Vasiliou). We have some up and coming athletes, also a lot of female race walkers and with the new 35km team event I guess that will give us more quotas. So maybe we can aim for 30 in Paris? I will say this for Greece should be our targets: 36-Team Sports (men's water polo + two other teams in basketball/water polo) 1-Archery 2-Artistic Swimming 30-Athletics 2-Boxing 3-Cycling 1-Diving 2-Fencing 4-Gymnastics 3-Judo 15-Rowing 10-Sailing 5-Shooting 18-Swimming 2-Table Tennis 2-Taekwondo 3-Tennis 1-Weightlifting 3-Wrestling So in total that equals 143. Probably seems very optimistic but time will tell. @Ted @maestro @George_D

And now Kvitova in the semifinals too. This is looking stronger than many slam semifinal lineups Sakkari could've made the top 10 if Kvitova and Bencic both lost today. Still a chance this week. But I like Kvitova and Bencic too. I think Maria will make the top 10 regardless, she is very close and has few points to defend while others have many points to defend over the next few weeks.

Weird, I didn't see that part of the match but saw the ending/handshake and it looked quite friendly.

Bourousis is another one who retired this year. Some months ago there were talks about Spanoulis, Bourousis and Zisis possibly helping Greece qualify for Tokyo. That would've been so nice. Oh well... Basketball will never be the same again for me, I grew up watching all of these guys.