Makedonas

Filtisakou DNF She was in a medal position for most of the race. I hope she'll be okay for Tokyo. Fiaska 7th. Good result for her I guess. She'll have another chance at this category in 2023, so hopefully she can win a medal then.

That's interesting. I wonder why. I think people should only use national flags at events like these. I noticed that our female triple jumper who won silver did not have any flag, and posed for photos with the Turkish and Latvian girls who had their flags. A bit strange. Are the national athletics federations the ones who provide the flags? Surely they knew we'd win some medals as we always do...

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. I did not watch any live stream if something happened, I missed it. I only saw the results.

Another silver medal for Greece, this time for Frantzeskakis. So we now have 3 medals, which is more than any other nation so far. Unfortunately no gold as of now. We might sneak a bronze in the women's 20km walk but I guess we'll have to wait until at least tomorrow for a gold. I guess Karalis in the men's pole vault and Pantazis in the men's triple jump are our best chances remaining for gold. I think they'll both likely win medals but they'd have to do really well to win golds...

Silver for Karydi in the women's triple jump. Very disappointing, this was her worst competition of the season. At least she will have another chance to win gold in this category in 2023. Let's see what she can do in the long jump but I definitely had higher expectations for her this year in the triple jump. Really thought she'd make it to Tokyo. Hoping Greece can win another medal today between Frantzeskakis in the men's hammer throw and Filtisakou in the women's 20km walk.

That's what I was thinking

http://sportsfeed.gr/apokleistiko-konta-stin-olympiaki-prokrisi-i-afrati/ According to this, it looks like Argyro Afrati will get in

I agree. Unfortunately sometimes we fall into a trap of getting excited too soon. Like I said look at our women's water polo team which won so much at the junior levels and I thought they would be doing much better as women by now (though they somehow are able to do better on the club teams than with the national team). And of course in rowing for many years now we win so many medals at these competitions but for various reasons don't do the same at the senior level. I also think sometimes it is better to have a few good players per year and not do so well than a whole team that wins everything. This is why I think our women's basketball team has a great chance to qualify for Paris 2024. We didn't have any great results with the youth teams, but every few years there are some good players and I think in the end when they are all older they will be good together. We saw it first with Spanou and Stamolamprou. Then with Fasoula/Christinaki/Pavlopoulou, then Tsineke, and now the new talents seem to be Chatzileonti and Bosgana. Right now they're a bit too young but I think with some more experience in a few years they can push to make it to Paris. We will see. Good to see Mouzenidis get bronze today even though I thought he would be throwing better by now. In 2018 his PB was 19.46 and now three years later it is 19.92. I know he had injuries but really hoping in the next years he can do a lot better. He will have to improve a lot in order to make it to Paris but I think he can do it. There seems to be a very good team in Nea Kallikrateia so I am not too worried about him. Tomorrow we have three good chances for medals with Karydi, Frantzeskakis, and Filtisakou. Karydi is consistently jumping over 14m now, and Filtisakou really impressed me with her improvement this year. If anything I expected Fiaska to make the Olympics before her.

"Stephania Haralabidis" Still hurts whenever I see her playing for USA, she was born in Greece and lived her whole life in Greece until she was 17 and we let her go so easily

@maestro @George_D @Yannakis Great start for our young athletes so far at the European U23 Championships in athletics and at the World U23 Championships in rowing. I am very impressed with some of the performances so far, and the next few days should be quite exciting. Also our men's U15 water polo team is currently in the semifinals of the European Championships. They already beat Serbia and Italy. Hopefully all of this success we had in youth tournaments in recent years will eventually happen in the men's category too. However I am a little cautious after how well our girls did from 2012 to 2015 or so, and so far all we got from them was a silver medal at the 2018 European Championships at the women's level.

Did South Africa withdraw yet?

BRONZE FOR MOUZENIDIS! A good start for Greece already. 19.41 isn’t that impressive (his PB and SB are 19.92) but still nice to be on the podium. This is now his fourth medal in a big competition (U18/U20/U23) but I expect more from him going forward. He needs to improve a lot the next few years if he wants to make it to Paris. I know he had injuries which stalled his progress, but I still expected him to do better the last few years. Perhaps my expectations were too high…

Men: Papakonstantinou I think will win a medal. He is very experienced and has won some medals before, and he also won his heat yesterday. I don't expect much from Faitas and Zografos. They're really young but if they can make the final I think it would be good. They are 18 and 20 so they will have more chances at this event. Palaiopanos and Stergiakas are good and experienced. Palaiopanos has won some medals before, but in the men's pair, and Stergiakas won gold in this event in 2018 but we haven't seen him for the national team since then, so it's nice to see him back. They won their heat today which I guess shows that they should win a medal too. I think our men's four are too inexperienced. We won bronze in that event at the European U23s last year, but only one of them is back now (Boukouvalas). Another one is now too old (Kalandaridis), and one switched to the double sculls (Palaiopanos). The fourth member is Palaiopanos' brother, so I'm not sure why he's not in the team this year. Would've been nice to see Stasinos and Makrygiannis here as they won a medal at the European Junior Championships last year and are now too old for that category, but I guess they're still young. Maybe next year... Women: Anastasiadou won gold last year at the European U23 as an 18 year old, but the entry list here is quite strong so I was concerned. However, she dominated her heat today and some others I expected to do better didn't, so now I'm more confident about her medal chances. I was surprised to see Arabatzi with Fragkou as Arabatzi is a lightweight rower, but they dominated their heat today which was a nice surprise. Both just 18 years old. The Varelopoulou sisters also did really well in their heat, lost first place right at the end but still qualified directly for the final which is nice. I didn't expect them to do so well. I'm disappointed that some of the other good U23 girls like Christodoulidis, Noni, Agioti, Vontzou aren't here. I guess our coaches decided not to send any of the USA-based athletes to Racice. The championships are earlier this year than they usually are. Maybe some of them will appear at the European U23s in early September though. Overall a really nice start for Greece with 4 of our 7 boats winning their heats. I wasn't as confident in our chances before the regatta started but now I think we'll get 3-4 medals. We won 4 medals in 2019 (M1X, M2-, W2-, W2X) and 4 of those 7 rowers made it to Tokyo. The problem is that we always win a bunch of medals at these U23 and junior regattas but then a lot of our athletes disappear. Hopefully that will start to change.

TEAM GREECE Men: BLM1X: Antonios Papakonstantinou BM2-: Pavlos Faitas, Dimitrios Zografos BM2X: Athanasios Palaiopanos, Christos Stergiakas BM4-: Zisis Boukouvalas, Stefanos Kapakoglou, Theodoros Lapikof, Leonidas Tzoumezis Women: BLW1X: Evangelia Anastasiadou BW2X: Angeliki Arabatzi, Evangelia Fragkou BLW2X: Eirini Varelopoulou, Eleni Varelopoulou Obviously since athletes going to Tokyo aren't here, we are without our big stars Christina Bourmpou and Maria Kyridou who won gold in 2019 as 18 year olds in BW2-. Still, this is a decent team for us. Most people are super young.

Greeks doing pretty well so far. We got two girls into the high jump final, two boys into the pole vault final (including Karalis who won silver in 2019 and is going to Tokyo), two boys into the hammer throw final (including Frantzeskakis who is going to Tokyo), a girl in the triple jump final, a boy in the shot put final, and we also have a boy who advanced to the 400m semifinals with a new PB. Tonight I think we have a chance to win our first medal. Mouzenidis in the shot put final has the 4th highest SB of all competitors in the final. He's won three medals before (gold at 2016 European U18, bronze at 2017 European U20 and bronze at 2018 World U20) so clearly he knows how to do it in big finals.

15 for Cyprus https://city.sigmalive.com/article/2021/7/8/oi-15-presbeutes-mas-sten-olumpiada-tou-tokio/ 3-Athletics 1-Cycling (Road) 1-Gymnastics (Artistic) 4-Sailing 4-Shooting 2-Swimming

For Greece we have three Tokyo-bound athletes on this team. None of them have any chance of winning medals in Tokyo anyways and they do here, so I guess it makes sense for them to participate here.

1. Who were the most unexpected Qualifiers(Team/Individual) from your nation? I don't think any of these have chances for medals in Tokyo, but it's nice for them to be there: 1-Artistic swimming (team) We knew the duet would qualify but if you asked me after Rio, I wouldn't have expected this. Though they improved a lot and have a very young team, plus the increased quotas and host quota for Japan (who would've qualified anyways) I guess helped a lot. 2-Evangelia Psarra (archery) She was there at the last five consecutive Olympics but didn't expect it this time around. She won't win a medal but it's a nice story for her at 47 years old to keep making it to the Olympics, now her sixth time. 3-Emilia Tsoulfa (sailing) She is 48 years old and retired after winning gold in Athens 2004. She didn't win the quota but beat the other Greek sailors in the national trials to take their spot. 4-Fani Tzeli (taekwondo) She is only 19 years old and I thought Tokyo would be too early for her, but she beat a Rio 2016 medalist in the qualifying tournament which surprised me. She also won bronze at the 2018 Youth Olympics but I didn't expect her to do this well this early in her career. 2.Which athletes/teams ' not qualifying from your nation hurt you the most? Too many to list... 1-Eleni Chatziliadou (karate) 2018 World Championships gold medalist 2-Apostolos Telikostoglou (taekwondo) 2019 World Championships silver medalist 3-Men's basketball team (though throughout the last few months it became expected as everyone kept getting injured so in the end it wasn't a huge shock, though we did expect to beat the Czechs once we beat Turkey) 4-Women's water polo team (This time we probably didn't expect to qualify unlike 2012 and 2016, but it still hurt a lot especially not knowing if we'd take South Africa's place until two weeks ago) 5-Elina Tzengko (javelin throw) 2018 YOG gold medalist. She's only 18 but last year she threw 63.96 and with the standard being 64m, I thought for sure she'd make it and keep improving and probably make the final in Tokyo too. However this year she has been mediocre and didn't improve like I expected her to. She's 35 in Road to Tokyo so I doubt there will be three withdrawals. 6-Sofia Asoumanaki/Aikaterini Nikolaidou (rowing) They got 4th in Rio in the women's double sculls where they were the youngest team in the event (19 and 23) but unfortunately both have had a lot of injury problems, plus even if Nikolaidou was healthy in time for Tokyo she said she would try to qualify in the lightweight double sculls anyways. 7-Alexandros Tsanikidis (boxing) Chatziliadou's boyfriend. He is our best boxer and was one win away from Tokyo but then the remainder of the Olympic qualifying tournament got postponed and he got injured and was unable to compete when it resumed this year. 8-Rhythmic gymnastics (our first time since 1984 not being represented in the sport. In Rio we had both individual and team, as we usually do, and to get no one this time is sad especially since we even won a medal in Sydney 2000 with our ensemble group) 9-Efthimios Mitas (shooting) He is probably our best skeet shooter but didn't qualify which is disappointing because he had some good World Cup results and a national record in this Olympic cycle but couldn't deliver at the qualifying events.

http://sportsfeed.gr/thetikoi-se-xrisi-meldoniou/ Doping controls in Greece (where the Russians went for training) caught them.

Do you think they will be ranked high enough to get into mixed doubles? Only 16 teams can make it

Lithuanian women's double just replaced one of their rowers, but in 2016 Russia had to forfeit some rowing quotas. I guess we will see what happens.

I've said this like 100 times already, but the Armenian girl used to be a Greek triple jumper. She switched to Armenia a few weeks ago (probably has distant Armenian roots based on her surname and the fact that many Armenians settled in Greece after the Armenian Genocide), then ran her first 100m a week and a half ago. It seems like all she wanted was to get an Olympic chance, hence the switch to Armenia and probably at that point she was willing to do 100m. No way was she going to decide not to go to Tokyo simply because she couldn't get into her preferred event after she already switched to Armenia (presumably only for the Olympic chance). With Greece she never would've had a chance of getting a universality spot.

What did I say back then? And it happened again...

Well maybe no Zika virus but we had this little thing called COVID-19...

We only got 20 in athletics Belibasaki injured, the young girls Tzengko and Karydi failing under pressure, Pappas being MIA, N.Scarvelis and Baniotis not doing it either. I thought they would all qualify or at least 3-4 of them. I was also off by saying we would have 1-2 in diving (we have 0) and 3 in shooting (we have 2).