Makedonas

@Bearas@Werloc

Need Kynigakis to get a quota tomorrow. 13th in Gwangju, 5th in Tokyo, DNS in Budapest, 6th in Fukuoka...it would be a shame to not make it to the Olympics and there is so much pressure as this is the only chance if you didn't win a medal at last year's Worlds... Hopefully he is able to compete at his normal level and he will make it

We are leading 2-0 against after Day 1! Tsitsipas won 6-3 6-4 over Copil Once again, our number two player Stefanos Sakellaridis is not playing for the national team. So actually our 8th highest ranked player, Aristotelis Thanos (number 1433) got the chance to play against Ionel (no. 265). Thanos actually won 4-6 6-3 6-2! Thanos must be similar to your Molcan @hckošice (but obviously a much lesser version), because he does nothing in other tournaments but is somehow 3-0 in Davis Cup singles matches, all times against opponents ranked much higher than him (last year he won vs no. 564 from Ecuador and the year before vs. a guy from Jamaica who was then 1130 but now 319). He is 22 yo, so not that young, but maybe he can improve a lot in the next few years and at least make the top 500 or so. You don't win three big Davis Cup singles matches by accident... So now tomorrow should be easier, we can probably rest Stefanos in doubles and have him focus on his singles match where he can clinch the victory for us. Also the venue this time was the Ano Liossia Olympic Hall, which was built in 2004 and hosted judo and wrestling at the Olympics. It was not used much since then for various reasons (it is not very close to the city centre and not easily accessible by public transportation), but the arena is now used by AEK BC (one of our biggest clubs and Tsitsipas' personal favourite team) for the past few years and our national basketball team has played some games there recently. So now we played at home the last three times in Davis Cup, and at three different iconic venues (though this one was the least famous of the three). However I think it would be nice if they played in other cities too. Greece is not just Athens and my Thessaloniki deserves some of these events too

We still don't have any sailors qualified for Paris which is crazy considering we had 8 in Tokyo, 7 in Rio, 11 in London, 12 in Beijing, 18 in Athens (host), 11 in Sydney, 14 in Atlanta, 9 in Barcelona, 8 in Seoul, 7 in Los Angeles... We will definitely have the lowest amount of sailors on our Olympic team in many decades, but Tsortanidis coming so close here (and also a decent showing from Kokkalanis) gives me hope that we can still qualify a few sailors for Paris. Of course all the category changes since Tokyo did not help us. We were in 6 events in Tokyo and the only one which stayed the same was women's laser radial, and our athlete there is now competing for Portugal...

Also I do have hope that some of the girls who were kicked off the team will eventually come back. Alzigkouzi was part of our national team at Worlds in 2013 and 2015, then disappeared for a few years and came back for 2020 Olympic qualification and is now still with the team at age 28. Malkogeorgou was on our team at Worlds in 2015 and 2017, then was MIA and came back in 2022 not only for the team but also to be part of the duet. Aside from them and 21 yo Kariori (who was part of the Tokyo team), only Platanioti is also not a teenager.

I really hope we can qualify the team, but I know it will be extremely difficult. Still, it's good to see we seem to be on the right path. It is especially important for us because Tokyo was the first time we qualified since 2004, and our girls didn't even get to compete because of multiple positive COVID cases in the team. They were really young too, so it was important to make it in 2024 so they would get the chance. Unfortunately, the team now has mostly new girls. Of the 9 girls from Tokyo, only 3 are still with us, and one is Platanioti who has already competed at the Olympics 3x (and will be a part of the duet for Paris assuming we qualify at least for that). Papazoglou was dropped from the national team after 2021, but she at least got to go to Rio (duet) and competed in the duet preliminary in Tokyo so I don't feel as bad (though she was very offended when the national team dumped her). Karamesiou and Vasilopoulou were also dropped after 2021, even though they were just teenagers they basically had to end their careers. Then Misikevych was dropped after 2022, also a teenager. Then after 2023, another two teenagers were dropped (Fragkaki and Gialama) and afterwards they spoke out about how they were mistreated by the federation etc. So really it is a messy situation, and even if we make it, it will be mostly new girls so qualification won't really feel like the "redemption" we hoped for...

Anyone know why Austria is not competing in the duet here? I know they already have the quota so perhaps that's why?

Bravo, Evangelia!

Your work for this as well as for other qualification trackers is extremely helpful and we all appreciate it. However, for tennis it is not complete as the Race to Paris is more accurate than the regular rankings.

281 pts

basketball legend Dimitra Zaponidou passed away at 89 yo She was the first captain of our women's national team. A great player for Greece in an era where it was almost unheard of for women to be playing basketball in our country. A lot of people believe she lived in the wrong country and that in another life she would've been a big name in the basketball world. This is a news report about her death. You don't need to speak Greek to see what a treasure she was, the video of her dribbling the ball and reminiscing on her career/younger days

2024 Australian Open: Men's Singles: Round 4: (12) Taylor Fritz USA d. (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE 7-6(3) 5-7 6-3 6-3

Tsitsipas out in the fourth round Unfortunately I am not surprised as he is just coming back from injury and it seems to be affecting his serve still. He didn't serve well towards the end of the match. He was not broken in the first two sets and then was broken four times total in the next two sets. I was worried he would lose earlier, so I am glad he made it this far at least. Kind of bittersweet. Hopefully, he will be fully recovered now and come back stronger for his next tournament which is not for another month. He won't have many points to defend for a while so it will be a good opportunity to rise again!

She said she jumped 14.02 last year to win the German National Championships and got invited to the World Championships, but the German federation said she needed 14.05 for them to send her to the World Championships, so that was the cherry on top of the cake that caused her to switch to Greece. She said her family speaks Greek in the house (even her mother who is not Greek), that she went to a Greek school in Germany for six years, and visited her grandmother in Greece every summer as a child. Her parents own a Greek restaurant in Dresden. She also said the Greek federation has been very supportive and helpful, which is a nice surprise for me to hear. Lastly, she said she always wanted to be a triple jumper because Greece has a great history in the event so she always felt it was in her blood from a young age. We will soon have another athlete joining us, as Mya Georgiadis (3rd at USA U20 National Championships last year in women's 400 hurdles) will be competing for Greece. Her mother was born in Greece and she said she grew up living with her Greek grandparents so she always felt very Greek. She said that if she was selected for the USA U20 national team last year she was going to decline the invitation because she prefers to compete for Greece.

These people act like no young people ever died prior to covid vaccines

I guess her qualifying win 6-4 in the third over the mighty Valentini Grammatikopoulou gave her the confidence and strength to breeze through the rest of the tournament

Greece Men: Arkadios Aspougalis, Stergios Bilas, Apostolos Christou, Konstantinos Englezakis, Kristian Gkolomeev, Evangelos Makrygiannis, Dimitrios Markos, Apostolos Papastamos, Apostolos Siskos, Konstantinos Stamou, Andreas Vazaios Women: Anastasia Boutou, Georgia Damasioti, Theodora Drakou, Maria Drasidou, Zacharoula Kalogeri, Eleni Kontogeorgou, Anna Ntountounaki, Artemis Vasilaki, Maria Zafeiratou I am not 100% sure but I think this is the largest team we've ever sent to the World Championships. Definitely by far the largest in the last decade at least. Pleasant surprise that we will have a women's 4x200 freestyle relay team, with Boutou, Kalogeri, Vasilaki, and Zafeiratou. For all four girls, that is the only event they are competing in. They are all 2006 or 2007 born except Kalogeri. I'm sure they won't do much, but a national record is likely. They will have a great future I think!

2024 Australian Open: Men's Singles: Round 3: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Luca van Assche FRA 6-3 6-0 6-4 Round 4: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. (12) Taylor Fritz USA

https://worldrowing.com/2024/01/19/january-2024-dimitra-eleni-kontou/

Tentoglou starts with 8.32 in Athens

Also Gauff's draw is ridiculously easy now, as always...

Another early slam loss for Maria It's crazy because she always used to be so reliable to beat lower ranked players at big events, ever since she became a top 10 player 2.5 years ago at age 26, she suffers so many of these losses. At least Stefanos won and is into the third round!

Maybe he is trying to get his doubles ranking up so he can play mixed with his girlfriend, who is certainly not a bad doubles player herself (Siniakova)

Of course I am in for

2024 Australian Open: Men's Singles: Round 2: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. Jordan Thompson AUS 4-6 7-6(6) 6-2 7-6(4) Round 3: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. Luca van Assche FRA Women's Singles: Round 2: Elina Avanesyan RUS d. (8) Maria Sakkari GRE 6-4 6-4