Makedonas

Anneta Kyridou and Stefanos Ntouskos both into the semifinals of single sculls! Pretty expected but still nice to see it happen.

No American women in the second round. First time ever?

Thank you @Vektor That was a good win from us and great performance by our young goalkeeper Zerdevas. We were down 2-5 and I thought it would get ugly but luckily our team fought back. We have a lot of good players who play for top European clubs (including Olympiacos who won the Champions League for 2017-18 and second place 2019-20) but for some reason our national team always underachieves. Perhaps this is the year that we finally break through and win our first Olympic medal. I doubt it though. I say that every time and we always have the inevitable choke in the quarterfinals so who knows, but definitely a good start for our boys.

Great race by Christina and Maria to finish first out of four and advance to the semifinals. Now the pressure is off and they have nothing to lose. I had a feeling after the heats that there was no way China would survive the repechage.

Really hope Bourmpou and Kyridou survive the repechage. They did an amazing job to qualify in the women's pair in 2019 as 18 year olds. It would be a shame to finish in last place. Bourmpou was injured and couldn't train for a few weeks in May/June. I wonder if that impacted them. They won gold together at everything. World U23, Euro U23, World junior, Euro junior, Youth Olympics. This might be their last event together as both are going to American universities after these Games, and the Kyridou sisters said they want to be in the same boat together in Paris. So I'm not sure what will happen. Bourmpou is only 174cm so maybe she can join a lightweight double with Anastasiadou. Of course Bourmpou and Kyridou can still compete together at the U23 level next year, and just because the Kyridou sisters say they want to be in the same boat doesn't mean it will happen, it's not their decision at the end of the day to decide who is in what boat for the national team.

29-4 in the end. No surprise. At least Greece would've been competitive. I don't see how this helps South Africa to lose every game by huge margins.

Good first win over Maria. She was down 2-5 in the first set and saved set point to come back and win 7-5 6-2 over Kontaveit.

Would've been nice if they did this in advance. I hope it's not too late for them to be replaced by more deserving athletes.

I agree, I've been saying that for a few months now. I think he has a good shot to take a medal. He's done very well post-pandemic and the men's single sculls lost a few big names like Manson and Synek.

Maybe they can improve. Same thing happened to Greece LM4- in Rio (as they were informed a week before Rio that they are going) and in the heats they were terrible but then slowly improved and then made Final A in the end.

Good start for our Stefanos Ntouskos, winning his heat. I've been saying that I think he can win a medal and I don't see why not. He was 4th at the European Championships (after having extra races that week because of the Olympic qualifiers while others were rested), and the bronze medalist from Poland didn't qualify for Tokyo. I would be very surprised if there are less than 5 Europeans in the Final A in that event also, so the European Championships seem to be a good indication. Still I think Zeidler Nielsen and Borch are the favourites for the podium. Surprised that Anneta Kyridou was third in her heat and not second. At least she advanced though.

I also was shocked by this. I've never seen anything like that before in rowing!

Hello, thank you for your support. Yeah I would also say 5-6. It could also be less like 2-3, but also maybe 8-10 with some luck. I think Petrounias will win a medal, and I also think we will get one in athletics (probably Tentoglou but maybe Stefanidi) and one in tennis (probably Tsitsipas). Then we have some chances in sailing, Ntouskos in rowing, Gkountoura in fencing, Gkolomeev in swimming, Korakaki in shooting, Prevolaraki in wrestling, smaller chances in men's water polo, Volikakis in cycling, maybe another medal in athletics (Papachristou?), Mavrommatis in shooting, Tzeli in taekwondo, Pilidis in wrestling, perhaps Kynigakis in the swimming marathon or Christou in 100m backstroke. We will see.

Elina is a very good player! I did not mean that disrespectfully in any way. However the other three girls I mentioned are very strong this year, and Elina hasn't had a great season. Also Maria beat Elina on hard courts a couple of times already, and she struggles against the other three.

Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe possible second round. Tiafoe just beat him at Wimbledon Sakkari vs Kontaveit first round. Maria should win but that's a tricky first round considering how many much weaker players are in this draw. Happy she got Svitolina in third round instead of Barty/Osaka/Sabalenka though.

Maybe she might switch to W1X but was trying LW1X since she still needs to be lightweight for Tokyo? Romania has so much talent in women's rowing and they didn't try to qualify in W1X this year so maybe that's why, so Romania can have an additional boat in Paris. Also she is 177cm, that is quite tall for a lightweight rower. It might be hard for her to keep a low weight. Kyridou is 180cm and that's part of why she gave up with lightweight and switched to W1X last year after Tokyo Games got postponed (she lost 10kg between 2019 and 2020 to be lightweight but then she was fainting, it's not healthy).

LW1X isn't an Olympic event, so it's weird that she wants to switch, usually it is the other way around and they try to switch from LW1X to LW2X. Even more weird that she would try that right before the Olympics, she couldn't wait until after?

At first it sounds shocking, but then when you start to think about it, it suddenly isn't surprising because I can't remember other Asian countries ever doing well in the sport.

Well I found a few from Australia. There is a player named Dylan Pierias in men's football, also a Taylah Tsitsikronis in softball, Alexandra Aristoteli in rhythmic gymnastics, and Anthony Hrysanthos in men's water polo. I had actually heard of Hrysanthos before, I'm pretty sure he plays club water polo in Greece or at least he used to. Also on the Italian softball team there is a Giulia Koutsoyanopulos...

I wouldn't say W2- is "safe" Second at this year's European Championships (behind Great Britain and barely ahead of Spain and Greece), third at the World Cup event (behind Spain and Ireland) and that's not including the top 4 from the 2019 World Championships (NZ, Australia, Canada, USA) who didn't compete at those events this year. Also not including the newly formed Danish team which features two former Olympic medalists (one from London and one from Rio). I still think W2- for Romania can win a medal but at most it should be in the "likely" category, definitely not "safe" However I'm surprised you didn't include LW2X at all, that's another chance for Romanian rowing in my opinion.

Yes, I discussed it in the thread about athletes with origins from other countries. I've heard of Papadakis before, she spends some time training in Greece with Teltsidou when she's in Europe. Her father is Greek and her mother is Filipino I believe. Of course I knew about Maroulis, after not being selected to the US team for London she wanted to compete for Greece but there were paperwork delays apparently. Anyways her grandmother still lives on Kalamos island and they named the main square after her when she won gold in Rio 2016 (for people who don't know it's a very small island, only a few hundred inhabitants so this is a big deal) I didn't know about Proestakis before, that's interesting. There's also Alexander Massialas and Sabrina Massialas in fencing, Elena Vesnina in tennis (her maternal grandfather was Pontian Greek), Alex Kessidis in wrestling (his brother competed for Greece in Olympic qualifying) With so many Greeks in Australia, I'm surprised there aren't any Greek-Australians competing for Australia. Nick Kyrgios in tennis (who I personally dislike) withdrew from the Games. There is a water polo player named Lea Yanitsas but she is not Greek, her husband is and she uses his name.

Great work! When I saw the thread title, I immediately came here to say Sakkari but you beat me to it

I remember in 2012 that had Ioannis Arzoumanidis winning a medal for Greece (wrestling) meanwhile he didn't even qualify The best was at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, ESPN said that Avraam Papadopoulos was one of Greece's "key players" meanwhile he was never one of our key players in his career, and he wasn't even called up for the 2014 World Cup I think some of these sites just write whatever they want and hope that no one will check

^It was just Mitakis, as Karachaliou is in Japan already. The other athlete was a swimmer but he also tested negative and is now good to go.

^Adding Alex Kessidis (wrestling) - He is from Sweden, his father is Greek and mother is Swedish, and his brother is also a wrestler who competes for Greece.