Makedonas

Congrats Czech Republic! You played a great game with great shooting, very impressive. Unfortunately once again we failed to qualify in both men's basketball and women's water polo. We are a joke. We are easily the most pathetic country in Europe and possibly the whole world. So embarrassing and we always get worse and worse. They should just cancel the Olympics to save ourselves from more embarrassment. Really just a disgrace how we've declined so much and have gotten used to being mediocre in so many sports where we should be good and used to be good. Shameful and disgraceful

Oh wait, he did play for Olympiacos actually I didn't even remember that. Probably because the format was different this year due to covid and we had some bad results so I wasn't fully paying attention like I normally do

Some big results at Greek U20 Championships this weekend. Still going on but almost done. 16 yo Iliana Triantafillou (born 2005) passed 4.12 in the pole vault. Her previous PB was 3.90. Our U18 and U20 NRs are 4.37 (Stefanidi), and our U23 NR is 4.51 (also Stefanidi) so if she keeps improving then I think she can break some of these records in the next few years. Yesterday we had a new U20 NR in the women's discus, Despina-Areti Filippidou threw 55.12 (previous NR was 54.50 from 1993 and her PB was 52.02). She is a 2003 girl so she will still be able to improve this NR even in 2022. Also Polyniki Emmanouilidou has the U20 NR in the women's 200m (23.83). She broke this record today too but unfortunately it was wind assisted so it doesn't count. However I think she can do it again at the European U20 and World U20 Championships coming up. Also she will still be in the U20 category in 2022 as well.

2020 World League was postponed due to covid and just ended a few days ago actually

39 years old and going back to the Olympics after making his debut in 2008! He is currently injured still but he's been going to physical therapy and hoped to be back last weekend for the Balkan Championships but didn't make it in the end. Happy in the end that he can make it to Tokyo (would've been a shame if his injuries + those suspicious athletes from some ex-Soviet countries would've kept him out). He deserves this. I hope he's healthy and can go to Tokyo. I think that's it for Greece now, after today's basketball game we will know the total number going to Tokyo unless we get 1 or 2 extra spots in swimming via OST, I'm not sure how likely that is but we got 2 OST spots for Rio. Also I think we have a female gymnast who is next in if someone withdraws. 18 yo Elina Tzengko in the women's javelin is still 3 out so I don't think she can make it but we'll see. Looks like in the end we might end up with 94-95 athletes after having 93 in Rio (depending on today's basketball result), something that didn't seem possible just a few weeks ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece_men's_national_water_polo_team#Current_squad It says here that he plays for them. I think this is updated because some of these players like Fountoulis and Kolomvos just moved to Olympiacos, and Vlachopoulos was playing for AN Brescia in Italy and now it says he plays in Serbia, also Argyropoulos was playing for Olympiacos and now it says he's playing for Jug, so I guess these are the clubs people will play for next season and it has Kapotsis at Steaua!

He left? I thought he was still at Steaua. I'm also happy he's there because this might be his only chance for the Olympics. He's already 29 and we have a lot of young players coming up who won several tournaments already (2017 and 2019 World Junior Championships and 2018 European U19 Championships).

Victoria Canada time. So 02:05 in Greece. I don't know if Egypt is the same time as Greece?

Haha fair point but our team is expected to do well because basketball is a huge sport in Greece and our national team has a lot of history. You are right that for many players this is the biggest game of their careers. With the exception of Mitoglou, Sloukas, Calathes and Papagiannis, most of our players don't normally play for the national team. So for them it is a really big deal because if we weren't missing so many important players this year, they wouldn't even be here. So they might never get this chance again even some of the younger ones. If we do qualify I think we might see a few changes depending on if some of our injured players recover in time. Surely Thanasis Antetokounmpo will join the team once his NBA season ends, and for his brother it depends on his injury situation.

I think 16:05 local time but I'm not 100% sure

What a performance! So proud of our boys! Even when we were down early in the first half I still had hope we would come back and win. I thought I was going to wake up my neighbors with my screaming but it sounded like they were watching too. Now we must not underestimate the Czechs. Another tricky opponent but I'd much rather face them than be playing against Canada again. We can do it. To see our team FINALLY go back to the Olympics for the first time since 2008. Please it would be my dream. 2012 was a shocking embarrassing non qualification out of nowhere, then 2016 another big disappointment. Now this time when we least expected it, could this be the time that we finally end our streak of non qualifications and go back to the Games?!

Thank you. So sorry for Canada. This is such a big opportunity for us right now. A shame we are playing with basically our B team but hopefully we can still make it, that would be great. First we have to beat Turkey. They will be tough. We usually beat them but history means nothing. Hoping for a good game from our boys tonight.

The Czechs should've won already, but they couldn't make free throws and made ridiculous turnovers at the end to allow Canada back in the game. Wow...

TEAM GREECE Emmanouil Zerdevas (GK) Konstantinos Genidounias Dimitrios Skoumpakis Marios Kapotsis Ioannis Fountoulis (Captain) Alexandros Papanastasiou Georgios Dervisis Stylianos Argyropoulos Konstantinos Mourikis Christodoulos Kolomvos Konstantinos Gkiouvetsis Angelos Vlachopoulos Konstantinos Galanidis (GK) Pretty good mix of youth and experience. 6 of these 13 players were in Rio, and only 2 were in London. Sad to see Alexandros Gounas not there, though it was expected because he was dropped from the national team in February and hasn't been called up since. Relieved to see Vlachopoulos back. He is arguably our best player (along with Fountoulis) and he wasn't at the recent World League finals, but I guess he was just injured or something because he was training with the team and playing in friendlies just a few weeks ago. Also I wish Dimitrios Nikolaidis got picked. For some reason he doesn't seem to be liked by our coach and often doesn't get called up, however he is very young so he will have more chances in the future.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ1kzOVsSDM/ Theodoros Iakovidis confirmed for men's 96kg. So in the end, Greek weightlifting survives (for now). This was going to be our first time since 1964 not sending anyone in weightlifting but now we can relax for a little until we worry about trying to qualify someone in 2024. Which will be a problem because Iakovidis said he would probably retire after Tokyo.

Alexis Copello of Azerbaijan is out of the men's triple jump. Not surprising as he hasn't competed at all during this outdoor season. Neither has the other Azeri, Nazim Babayev. I wonder if he'll withdraw. Tsiamis now moves up to 33rd. I don't wish injury on anyone but it would be really nice if Tsiamis gets in. He certainly would've made it but DNS in the final of the Greek national championships (after jumping in qualifying) and then was going to go to the Balkan Championships but withdrew a few days prior. Both events would've given him easy ranking points to go to Tokyo. Then you have the three miracle men (one from Uzbekistan, one Armenia, and one Georgia) who all qualified in this event despite never jumping anywhere near the standard unless they are in their home countries. World Athletics really needs to do something about this problem. Tsiamis really should be in Tokyo, would be such a shame for him to miss out...

Bulgaria also wasted a chance in rowing by not sending anyone to the European Qualifying Regatta. They 99% would've qualified in men's single sculls.

And let's not forget they (FINA) have some history with mistakes in those invitations https://swimswam.com/fina-mistakenly-invites-greek-swimmer-vourna-to-swim-in-rio/

It's very sad to see Bulgaria with only 42 athletes. It seems like every time their team gets smaller and smaller (same problem with us as well)

I knew you weren't making it against Greece or anything, I was just saying that our guy would've probably finished higher in the rankings if Dimas didn't refuse to send him to the 2019 World Championships.

Sorry if it was said before, but do we know when OST invitations will be announced?

If it makes you feel better, Greece didn't even send a team to the 2019 World Championships and it's been kind of a scandal now because our guy probably would've qualified if he went in 2019 and got points. However Pyrros Dimas (who is now president of our weightlifting federation I believe) decided to not send anyone and now he received some backlash for it. Especially since this could be the first time since 1964 that we don't send any weightlifters to the Olympics (our only woman who qualified lost her spot because she was caught doping), and we've won more medals in weightlifting than any other sport except athletics, so this is like the final nail in the coffin for Greek weightlifting if we can't even qualify anyone for the Olympics anymore.

Perhaps she said she won't go even if she does get in.

So they may not have been allowed to compete in 400m? I guess that seems likely, yeah.

Are you sure, because it looks like Paolini #87 and Jorovic #90 SR were the last ones in from Europe. Bogdan is #91. Anyways I am really surprised that so many Romanian girls aren't going. I expected them to care about the Olympics especially being Romanian. Cirstea and Begu have been before, but Tig and Bogdan? That surprised me.