Makedonas

Unbelievable choke from our girls against Portugal. We led 44-25 not too long ago and now we are down 49-50... I still think we will win but this is not good.

Wow, what a nice surprise! It's a pity Vougiouka retired after Rio 2016, she was only 30. Had she continued until Tokyo, we could've maybe qualified in the team sabre and possibly had a chance at a medal with Vougiouka, Gkountoura and Georgiadou. Unfortunately we don't have a good third fencer in this event, especially since only one can qualify via ranking. In Tokyo it was Gkountoura, which meant that Georgiadou didn't even have the opportunity to compete in the European qualifying tournament We had Kontochristopoulou qualify for Rio but that was in the foil event (she was 18 then so it was a big deal but now it seems like a big fluke), and now we also have Chaldaiou in the foil event who won bronze at the European Junior Championships last year. On the men's side there is absolutely no one. We had a guy Giakoumatos who was in the 2014 Youth Olympics and won a medal with the mixed team, and Kontochristopoulou's brother also competes at some big competitions but without much success. So yeah, that's basically the story of Greek fencing after 2004 (before 2004 we were completely non-existent so our current situation is actually a massive improvement). We haven't won an Olympic medal since 1896 but we had chances in London (Vougiouka had a big lead in her quarterfinal match and then got injured and lost), Rio and Tokyo. Perhaps we will finally break the curse in Paris? Gkountoura won bronze at the 2019 World Championships which was the first Greek fencer to ever win a medal at the World Championships so that's another step in the right direction.

I'm sorry but that is a total joke. Very disappointing! Will the 2027 World Championships and other qualification regattas also be just 1500m?!

Anyone else think it's weird that the WTA Finals this year are from Wednesday to Wednesday? Instead of ending on a Sunday like usual. Really annoying that the ATP Finals begin while the WTA Finals are still going on. I'm not a fan of this at all.

http://sportsfeed.gr/dioxnoun-tin-karaxaliou-apo-tin-ellada/ Πόσο κρίμα

It seems that Vasileia Karachaliou (laser radial) will look for another country to represent. She has had a very bad relationship with the Greek sailing federation for many years now and she finally said that it is enough. She just turned 25 a few weeks ago and this year she was 9th in Tokyo and won bronze at the European Championships. http://sportsfeed.gr/dioxnoun-tin-karaxaliou-apo-tin-ellada/

Sabalenka hasn't been the same since she tested positive for COVID

So we lost 0-1 against Spain. We needed to win to stay alive anyways, but we conceded a very questionable penalty...

Really not sure what to say about that Albanian team... Good win for our girls away at Great Britain, winning by 7 points. I said that our girls can qualify for Paris 2024 and this was the first step for that. Playing without Christinaki and Spyridopoulou (both injured), and our good young girls who are playing college basketball in America (Bosgana, Tsineke, Chatzileonti, Krimili, Papadopoulou), this was going to be tough against the strongest opponent in our group. Now I really can't see us not qualifying for Eurobasket 2023, and at that tournament we will have our college girls (as it is played in June) and be even stronger. Hopefully everyone stays healthy because we really do have a lot of young talent and a lot of potential.

Sakkari is just a bad matchup for Swiatek. Maria won all 3 of their matches in straight sets.

Wow, this is really shocking. I guess it helps us but we still need to beat Spain. Really frustrating because we conceded foolish late equalisers against Georgia and away at Kosovo. We really should've won both of those games and then we'd be in a great position to qualify or make it to the playoffs. Now things are really difficult for us. We dug our own grave.

Albania Era Istrefi - Bonbon

Are Eurovision songs allowed for the Festival of Music? I will take regardless, but not sure about a second country depending on the Eurovision rules.

5 medals for us (1-2-2), surely the most ever (though we won more gold medals in 2019) Also 16 Greek national records were set in Kazan, which is amazing especially since we only sent 6 swimmers there. If Gkolomeev went, we could've had even more medals and records too. It's pretty cool to see how much progress has been made in Greek swimming over the last decade or so. For many years the only big names were Gianniotis and Grigoriadis, but now we have this generation of Christou, Gkolomeev, Ntountounaki and Vazaios (and more to come) that keep winning a lot of medals. Gkolomeev and Kynigakis each got 5th place at the Tokyo Olympics which was very nice after many of us thought Gianniotis' Olympic silver in 2016 would be the end of an era in Greek swimming as he was retiring but actually, it was not the end of an era but the beginning of a new one!

http://sportsfeed.gr/pagkosmios-protathlitis-o-pilidis/ Mpravo!

He is from Iran, no?

Big NR for Apostolos Christou today in the 50m backstroke. He had 23.33 from 2019 and made it 23.17 today in the heats, and then 22.87 in the semifinal. Hoping for a medal from him.

Kontaveit has won 26 of her last 28 matches

Our shot putter Kyriakos Zotos (currently ranked 59th by World Athletics) has been banned for 4 years due to a banned substance found in his sample from the Greek National Championships in June. https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/greece/kyriakos-zotos-14535437

Yes but to be fair an outdoor WL is seen as more significant as an indoor WL (especially since 60m is not an Olympic distance). I don't mean to disrespect Jacobs, but I think not having the outdoor WL is probably why he was not included. Still, Jacobs had a great season and you should be very proud of him! Also unfortunately for Tentoglou, there is no long jump team event to win "1 more Olympic gold"

Tentoglou had a WL with a big jump of 8.60. Jacobs didn't even have WL. Tentoglou also won gold at the European Indoor Championships in 2021 (I know Jacobs did as well).

After the first listen, I was able to narrow it down to 18. Then I narrowed it to 14 and finally 12, although I had to listen to some songs multiple times in the end to eliminate them and also to decide the order. Some really good songs here and also a lot of variety in genres. Well done to everyone!

For Greece this would be just your average Sunday, these things happen all the time in our league Okay maybe not every week but 3-4 times per year I'd say.

Also it should be known that the other athletes entered the training camp without their PCR results yet anyways so that was fine (they received them the next day) but Anneta who entered with a negative test result from the rapid test was "putting other athletes at risk." Even more disappointing is that our gold medalist Stefanos Ntouskos is the athletes' representative in the federation and he is one of the people who voted to suspend Anneta for one year (the maximum penalty). It's all about politics. Also the Kyridou sisters seem to be on one side and Bourmpou/Ntouskos on the other, they don't follow each other on Instagram anymore (even Maria Kyridou and Christina Bourmpou who were in the women's pair together and won so many gold medals together unfollowed each other).

Spain leads Greece 6-1 at halftime. Wow. We are shockingly poor today, nothing is going our way. We even had a penalty and missed that too. Somehow I have a feeling we will do better in the second half but I'm not sure if it will be enough to come back from such a large deficit.