Makedonas

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.

FINALLY a medal for Greece! Gold for Elina Tzengko in the women's javelin It was expected that she'd take gold but still nice to see. She had a really bad season so far (although she is WU20L it's still far from her PB) and missed Tokyo by one spot in the end. At least she was able to get gold here as some consolation. Hopefully she can do the same at the World Championships next month. Also she was 4th here in 2019 as a 16 year old so it's nice that she didn't mess up this time around. She has a history of poor performances in important events (also might explain why she started throwing better this year after it seemed unlikely to make it to Tokyo because she no longer had that pressure), but now she has two gold medals (2018 Youth Olympics and now 2021 European U20 Championships) so hopefully this gives her confidence for other big competitions going forward. Also nice for Greece to finally reach the podium here after 4th place finishes in the men's hammer throw and women's 800m.

Or they can be like Greece's men's lightweight four in 2016, last minute replacement for Russia announced one week before the Games, the crew had never been together before (it wasn't all of the same athletes from the qualification regatta, I think just two of them) and they made Final A (finished 6th though)

Apparently two of the Greek sailors had coronavirus. Names weren't given, but it's not hard to figure out that they were Ioannis Mitakis and Vasileia Karachaliou, as all other Greek sailors are already in Tokyo. The news from today is that Mitakis tested negative and will fly to Japan soon (after his negative test they revealed his name). It was also reported that "the other case" (obviously Karachaliou, unless it's some coach or something) will have results tonight and if they are negative they will go to Japan on Monday.

And just like that Elli Deligianni finishes 4th at the European U20 Championships in the women's 800m with a new U20NR of 2:04.11. 2:04.02 got silver and 2:04.08 got bronze, so she was really close to even a medal. And Vasiliki Kallimogianni finishes 11th in the women's 3000 steeplechase. She broke the U20NR in the semifinals and she is just 16 years old. She was the youngest athlete in the final and only two of the 15 girls from the final will be eligible for this category in 2023 at the next European Championships, Kallimogianni and one of the German girls. It's too bad Vasileia Spyrou is injured and not competing here as she also seems to be doing very well. Plus Alkistis Givizini did very well this year and she is also very young. Others like Eleni Ioannidou, Ioanna Panopoulou and Nikoleta Kynatidou seem to have stopped making progress so hopefully the girls I mentioned in this post don't fall into that same trap. Nevertheless these are good signs for Greek athletics. I'm not sure about Paris 2024, but I think in Los Angeles 2028 we will have some representation in these middle/long distance events. At least for the women, as the men's situation still looks poor.

Tzengko safely into the final as expected. It seems like she is our only medal hope left, unless Bouzakis sneaks a medal in the men's discus. Deligianni 4th . Sad to see her miss out on a medal. Just 0.09 seconds separated 2nd from 4th, but she smashed her own U20NR from last year by over one second! So a very good sign and nice that we have a good young athlete in this event because we typically never do well in these middle/long distance events. Sad that Chatzipourgani didn’t make the final, but good that she improved her SB by over a second and got a new PB (from 59.01 to 59.00, lol). Looks like her injuries are past her and hopefully at the World Championships next month she can do much better. Kallimogianni 11th in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, very good considering she was the youngest athlete in the final. She’s just 16 so she’ll get another chance at this category in 2023. Who knows, maybe she can even win a medal then? It will be tough and the German girl who finished 5th will also be back (and I'm sure some other countries probably have good U18 girls coming up too), but it’s a good sign for Greece as we never do well in these distance events like I was saying. Very disappointing that none of our three female shot putters made the final, and some of the others were a bit disappointing today too aside from Mortzakis in the men’s 10km walk who got a new PB.

Who?

I thought it would be a cool idea for people to post some interesting facts/figures about their country’s delegations. I’ll start with Greece By the numbers: 29th Summer Olympic appearance (tied for most of all-time) 83 = athletes in Tokyo (smallest team since Barcelona 1992. We had 93 in Rio 2016) 46 = male athletes in Tokyo (56 in Rio 2016) 37 = female athletes in Tokyo (same amount as Rio 2016) 17 = sports in Tokyo (15 in 2016, 19 in 2012, 22 in 2008) 40 = Olympic debutants in Tokyo 43 = former Olympians in Tokyo 4 = mothers in Tokyo (Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou-pole vault, Paraskevi Papachristou-triple jump, Evangelia Psarra-archery, Emilia Tsoulfa-sailing) 18 = athletes born in 2000 or later 32 = age of oldest Olympic debutant (Polychronis Tzortzakis-cycling) 8 = former Youth Olympics participants 6 = most Olympic appearances (Evangelia Psarra-archery) 4 = former Olympic gold medalists (Anna Korakaki-shooting, Eleftherios Petrounias-gymnastics, Ekaterini Stefanidi-athletics, Emilia Tsoulfa-sailing) 6 = former Olympic medalists (same as above +Pavlos Kagialis-sailing, Panagiotis Mantis-sailing) Athletes with the most Olympic appearances (including Tokyo) : 6: Evangelia Psarra (archery - 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) 5: Panagiotis Gionis (table tennis - 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) 4: Konstantinos Douvalidis (athletics - 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020), Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou (athletics - 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020), Emilia Tsoulfa (sailing - 1996, 2000, 2004, 2020), Christos Volikakis (cycling - 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) Former Olympians who were not in Rio: Periklis Ilias (cycling - 2012, 2020) Nikolaos Mavrommatis (shooting - 2012, 2020) Dimitrios Tsiamis (athletics - 2008, 2020) Emilia Tsoulfa (sailing - 1996, 2000, 2004, 2020) Three youngest Olympians: 1. Krystalenia Gialama (artistic swimming) - 16 years, 11 months 2. Eleni Fragkaki (artistic swimming) - 17 years, 5 months 3. Andriana Misikevych (artistic swimming) - 18 years, 4 months Three oldest Olympians: 1. Emilia Tsoulfa (sailing) - 48 years, 2 months 2. Evangelia Psarra (archery) - 47 years, 1 month 3. Panagiotis Gionis (table tennis) - 41 years, 6 months Siblings: 1. Anneta Kyridou (rowing) and Maria Kyridou (rowing) 2. Stamatia Scarvelis (athletics) and Nicholas Scarvelis (athletics, 2016) 3. Christos Volikakis (cycling) and Zafeiris Volikakis (cycling, 2012) *Those in italics represented Greece but are not in Tokyo. Parents/Children: 1. Maria Sakkari (tennis) and Angeliki Kanellopoulou (tennis, 1984) 2. Kristian Gkolomeev (swimming) and Tsvetan Gkolomeev (swimming, 1980 and 1988) *Those in italics represented Greece but are not in Tokyo. Top cities with the most 2020 Olympians: 1. Athens - too many to count 2. Chania, Crete - 7 3. Thessaloniki, Macedonia - 6 4. Karditsa, Thessaly - 4 5. Heraklion, Crete - 3 *First time since 1996 that no athletes from Corfu (Kerkyra) island are going to the Olympics, and first time since 2000 that no athletes from Kastoria, Macedonia and Veria, Macedonia are going to the Olympics. Athletes born in other countries: Kristian Gkolomeev (swimming) - His family moved to Greece when he was an infant and he lived in Greece his entire life Alexios Ntanatsidis (judo) - Both of his parents are Greeks and he lived in Greece from a very young age Stamatia Scarvelis (athletics) - Both of her parents are Greeks Athletes from Greece but representing other countries: Kristina Alvertsian (athletics) Anna-Maria Alexandri (artistic swimming), Eirini Alexandri (artistic swimming) Sideris Tasiadis (canoeing) [okay he is different from the others because he lived most of his life in Germany but he did live in Greece for 10 years during his childhood so we’ll count him] Afrodite Zegers [nee Kyranakou] (sailing) Stephania Haralabidis (water polo) *All used to compete for Greece except for Tasiadis Athletes that train in Greece but represent other countries: Nikol Merizaj (swimming) Kristina Alvertsian (athletics) Kalia Antoniou (swimming), Nikolaos Antoniou (swimming) Marija Vukovic (athletics) *I didn’t include people who play for Greek clubs in team sports because in water polo for example there would be so many. Biggest teams by sport: Athletics: 20 in 15 events Water Polo: 13 in 1 event Swimming: 12 in 13 events Artistic Swimming: 9 in 2 events Sailing: 8 in 6 events Biggest changes in team size compared to Rio: (-)8: Gymnastics (+)7: Artistic Swimming (-)6: Rowing (-)5: Athletics Events where more than one athlete/team per country is allowed to participate, and the country has reached the maximum quotas: Athletics: women’s 20 km walk (3), women’s pole vault (3) Swimming: men's 200 m freestyle (2), men's 400 m freestyle (2), men’s 800 m freestyle (2), men’s 200 m individual medley (2) First time qualifying in… Rowing women’s pair EVER Swimming mixed relay EVER (new event) Swimming men’s 800 m freestyle EVER (new event) Tennis mixed doubles EVER Artistic swimming team since 2004 Men’s tennis since 2004 Sailing women’s 470 since 2004 Athletics women’s 100 m since 2000 Rowing women’s single sculls since 1996 First time not qualifying in… Heptathlon since 1996 Shot put since 1996 Marathon since 1992 High jump since 1988 Rhythmic gymnastics since 1984 Other interesting facts: -In 2004 (8 and 8), 2008 (2 and 2), 2012 (1 and 1) and 2016 (3 and 3), each time Greece had the same amount of men’s medals as women’s medals. It will be interesting to see if that trend will continue this time, or if one gender will do better than the other in Tokyo. -Our long jumper Miltiadis Tentoglou was just 18 in Rio, and he was the youngest of the 103 members of the Greek Olympic team in 2016. Now he is not the youngest, but he is the only member of the Greek Olympic team that actually speaks Japanese. He claims to understand everything but says his speaking isn't perfect although he can converse in Japanese. He learned the language because he is a big fan of Japanese anime. I bet not too many countries can say they have athletes going to Tokyo who can actually speak Japanese, especially someone who is one of their biggest hopes to win gold as Tentoglou is for us. -This is our 11th consecutive Olympic participation in men's water polo. We've never had more than two consecutive participations in any other team sport. -I haven't seen any official lists yet, but it is likely that Greece will have the youngest teams of all countries in the sports of artistic swimming and rowing (based on average age of all athletes per NOC in these two sports). Feel free to add any other interesting facts about your countries’ teams!

1. Athens 2004. Words can't describe how much this meant as only Greeks understand what it felt like during those days. I was young then but have many memories, the best times of my life for sure! The world's attention was on us for two weeks and it was a really special feeling especially because countries of our size are usually too small to host Summer Olympics. Everyone was talking about it and that moment had a big impact on all of our lives. Even my grandmother (RIP, she died shortly after so this was basically my last memory of her before she spent the rest of her life in hospitals) who knew nothing about sport went to some games and was always buying me souvenirs of the mascots (t-shirts, stuffed animals, hats). Our whole country just united for Euro 2004 and a few weeks later we did it again. These were really magical moments for Greece and I am so thankful I got to experience them. I will be telling these stories one day to my grandchildren. That was when my Olympic addiction began. I wouldn't be posting here now if not for that. 2. Gianniotis winning silver at Rio 2016 in the last race of his career. He should've won gold but just to see him end his career with an Olympic medal was so nice. He was so close several times before, and was able to do it a bunch of times at World Championships too. Seeing him cry after finishing 4th in London 2012 was so painful and we didn't know if he would get another chance. But against all odds as a 36 year old he won silver in Rio 2016. He truly saved the best for last and won Greece's first swimming medal in over 100 years! 3. Dimas winning bronze in Athens 2004 in his last competition ever. I know I already said Athens 2004 but this moment needed it's own mention. This guy is a huge legend of Greek sport and of Olympic weightlifting in general. People just have to know his story, where he started from (a small village in the Greek minority zone of southern Albania), and what he went through living as an indigenous ethnic minority under a communist dictatorship, then he broke free and was able to settle in his motherland and then won three golds for us in 1992, 1996, 2000. Then in 2004 at home he was injured and we didn't even know if he would compete and no one expected him to win a medal. Everyone thought he is too old and out of form, and he won a bronze. The standing ovation he got from the crowd was incredible. We celebrated his bronze like a gold and when I watch that video on youtube of the medal ceremony it always brings tears to my eyes. Proud Greek moment for sure!